Mobile service revenue growth was down 1.2ppts in Q4 as the impact of 2023’s price rises continued to wane.
Growth will wane further into Q1 and with spring price rises being 7-9ppts lower than last year’s, we don’t foresee a revenue boost in Q2.
With negative publicity and upticking churn from inflation-linked price increases, Ofcom’s review of the mechanism may prove to be a blessing in disguise.
With the returns of the mobile industry at the forefront of a range of policy issues including in the EC White Paper and the prospective Vodafone/Three merger, we take a fresh look at its economics.
Higher network costs due to government and subscriber demands are hitting the sub-scale operators disproportionately, limiting their ability to tailor their network to their market position.
Our analysis of the UK market suggests that H3G would need a market share of 23% at today’s price levels to earn even the most basic return on capital—an unrealistic prospect. With the fixed market likely to evolve to a patchwork of one/two/three-player areas, three nationwide mobile networks could still be a strong result.
Reports of the "death of the metaverse" are greatly exaggerated. The scope of investment across metaverse-friendly technologies and experiences remains robust, although aggressive global competition in the AI sector could cause speed bumps.
VR, XR, and spatial computing will see a renaissance in 2024, renewing interest from developers as well as major media and entertainment. Gaming continues to be a major driver of the metaverse, with clear opportunity for new major services to compete against Fortnite and Roblox.
The building blocks are therefore all in place for the next consumer growth phase. Scaling the metaverse will be dependent on consistent and sustained trials, and more engagement from media and entertainment beyond games.
Prepared for The Metaverse Society by Enders Analysis.
Sony PlayStation’s next CEO will have hard decisions to make: compete against a resurgent multiplatform Microsoft, or retreat and defend an increasingly rickety PlayStation console model.
New gaming hardware will have an outsize influence in the year ahead, giving gamers unprecedented choice, starting with XR headsets and continuing to a likely new Nintendo Switch.
YouTube’s foray into browser-based games will be the service to watch in 2024. If successful, streaming services, including Netflix, will be on track to become heavyweight game platforms.
Ofcom’s final statement on net neutrality addresses most of our prior concerns, leading to opportunities for UK telcos to effectively address internet congestion, and monetise their network capabilities.
BT is looking to take advantage of its new freedoms with new TV distribution services, which could save network capacity, improve user experience and earn it a share of the content distribution value chain.
We think that there are many other attractive opportunities, but telcos will have to work hard to sell any of them given the need to work together and reverse the bad blood that has developed with many content providers.