Service revenue growth dipped by 0.7ppts to 1.2% this quarter—a slightly disappointing performance given the price rises implemented in some markets.
The impact of price increases has been mixed, with little revenue benefit in France, somewhat better in Spain, and a shift to Iliad in Italy.
Q2 should be stronger, with the UK price rises kicking in, the promise of a turnaround from Vodafone Germany, but a waning of price rise benefits elsewhere.
Piracy of live video feeds—chiefly sports—is growing due to illegal subscription ‘IPTV’ services delivered to TV sets.
Consumers discover illegal feeds through search engines and social media, and subscribe through global payment systems.
Anti-piracy activity is focused on feed disruption. There is little attention paid to credit card and online payment facilitators who need to do more.
Service revenue growth was flat at 1.9% this quarter—a reasonable performance considering waning boosts from roaming and UK price rises, and a challenging macroeconomic backdrop.
Looking ahead, operators in most markets are now implementing price rises, providing a welcome (albeit transitory) tailwind to revenue growth—although EBITDA momentum remains subdued.
We expect a consolidation deal to be announced between Vodafone UK and H3G in the coming weeks and a decision from the EC on the Orange/MásMóvil deal in August—crucial issues for the sector’s prospects.
The total value of European football media rights has stagnated since the end of the last decade, translating into a real terms decline.
New entrants like DAZN and Amazon have occupied the space left open by incumbents such as Sky and Canal+.
Serie A, Ligue 1 and the Premier League will tender rights this year, entertaining unrealistic expectations of bids from Apple.
Microsoft’s planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard is in trouble. US, UK, and European regulators may make the deal impossible for Microsoft—and a disaster for Activision and the wider industry.
Sony’s late improvement in PlayStation 5 sales is only just enough to reach its target numbers for the year. It needs a more dynamic approach to a rapidly changing industry, and a less dogmatic message to consumers and regulators.
Netflix Games is more than a trial—it’s on track to become a major games platform.
In a transformative upgrade of its content subscription offering, Google is buying the rights to live Sunday NFL games for $2 billion per year for 2023-2031.
YouTube can leverage its massive reach to challenge existing video aggregators, including pay-TV platforms and Amazon, as a gatekeeper to consumers.
Google will likely deploy a similar strategy in Europe, eventually competing with Sky, Canal+ and other incumbents—a hopeful development for football leagues.
Magazine publishers are at different stages of a transformation cycle, but a variety of external and industry factors are massively accelerating change.
Often described as the transition from page to screen, in reality transformation is a deeper redefinition of each brand’s community and purpose, and the use-case benefits it delivers.
Online advertising is evolving into a space where trusted consumer media can exploit their advantages of community engagement and premium context, rather than indiscriminate traffic.
Service revenue growth was up just 0.1ppts to 2.0% this quarter, as price rises in the UK and the peak of the roaming boost offset weakness elsewhere.
Price increases to combat inflationary cost pressures are gathering momentum—a potential revenue cushion as roaming tailwinds diminish and challenging economic conditions weigh.
Vodafone is battling strategic issues in most of its main markets—significant change in strategy will be required from the new leadership.
Rupert Murdoch is seeking to merge News Corp and Fox Corp, split up a decade ago, to create greater corporate scale and streamline management.
A recombined News Corp would generate revenues of c.$24 billion based on fiscal 2022 results, with EBITDA of $4.6 billion, and an enterprise value in the region of $25-26 billion.
An additional rationale for News Corp is the financial protection of cherished news brands such as the Wall Street Journal and the Times inside a stronger enterprise. While the first phase of online transformations has been successful, sustainability of trusted, quality news media is never settled or guaranteed. The objective could hardly be more important now and in the coming years.
Advertisers are rushing to create immersive virtual experiences to promote their brands, particularly on social gaming platforms with large built-in audiences. The interest shows no sign of waning.
We are in the very early days of metaverse marketing: formats are bespoke, costs are high and the data provided by platforms is rudimentary. Not all product categories are suited to a virtual incarnation.
The long-term promise is tantalising: advertising that is better than its real-world counterpart, that forges new relationships with customers, and that forms part of the product offering rather than just promotional activity.