Mobile operators, services and handset makers are diverging – they all come to the MWC but have increasingly little to say to each other as their businesses move in very different directions

In the context of -5% European mobile revenue growth, the MNOs at the MWC were a sober bunch, focusing on industrial services, defensive moves around messaging, and a (not unreasonable) plea to regulators for some relief

As competition in Android intensifies between hundreds of black plastic rectangles, the picture for OEMs looks tough but Google’s failure to make Android work well for developers may also start to bite, leaving an opening for Nokia and Windows Phone

We forecast print media advertising will be down by about 4% in 2012, with national newspaper display roughly flat, performances we envisage will be seen as a temporary reprieve once the substantially tougher 2013 that we expect to follow is underway

Print media is not out of the structural woods, and even relatively small revenue contraction will amplify pain as the opportunities for further streamlining fixed-cost physical distribution operations are realistically diminishing

Digital is a greater challenge for paper than for screen media, as consumer and advertiser demand continues to weaken, yet publishers struggle to generate the killer service solution to stimulate scale revenue online

The launch of the fourth mobile network operator in France has so far met with dramatic success, gaining around 1.5 million subscribers in the first month, driven by rock-bottom pricing and a clever mass media PR campaign

Its tariffs are, however, so low that it is very hard to see how they are sustainable in the longer term. In the short term, Free’s economics are boosted by asymmetric voice and text termination rates that result in other operators’ customers effectively subsidising Free subscribers by €5 to €10 a month

This arbitrage is very likely to disappear over the next two years, but Free Mobile can increase its prices when this occurs. Its challenge will be to acquire a critical mass of subscribers before this point, and to retain them thereafter

News International is to launch the Sun on Sunday on 26 February, seven months after closing the News of the World

In the intervening period, Trinity Mirror has picked up the bulk of the 55% of NoW copies that have not entirely fallen out of the market since June 2011

The £150 million revenue once generated by NoW is diminished and dispersed among rival publishers and we estimate that even a triumphant launch would likely generate half to two thirds of the income of the closed title

Rumours that News International will consider launching a newspaper to replace the News of the World have circulated for months, and probably only one event can dispel them

Trinity Mirror has picked up the bulk of the 60% of NoW copies that have not entirely fallen out of the market since June 2011, and arguably the longer any launch is delayed the harder it will be for NI to attract them back

The £150 million revenue once generated by NoW is diminished and dispersed among rival publishers and we estimate that even a triumphant launch would likely generate half to two thirds of the income of the closed title