European mobile service revenue growth improved by 0.5ppts to -7.2% in Q2 2014, but all of this and more was driven by a reduced regulatory impact; underlying growth has been stuck at around 6% for the last four quarters, with progress in some areas consistently being countered by further pricing pressure

Industry consolidation has progressed to some extent, but would have had little impact in the quarter. Further in-country mobile/mobile mergers are more than likely but uncertainty driven by the changing European Commission may be delaying decisions to move forward

The UK example shows that consolidation is not necessary for market repair, but in the present environment the smaller operators in continental Europe have every incentive to be as disruptive as possible to encourage their acquisition, so further mergers cannot come soon enough

European mobile service revenue growth improved to -7.6% in Q1 2014 from -9.0% in the previous quarter, but most of the improvement came from a drop in the regulated MTR cut impact, with underlying growth only improving 0.2ppts

This is in spite of continued improvements in GDP growth and the highest level of consumer confidence in six years, confirming that the often-blamed economic conditions actually have been having little impact on the market, with competitive intensity the real cause

For this very reason, the approval by the EC of in-market mergers in Germany and Ireland has been warmly welcomed by the industry and investors. Our view is that market repair is dependent on a change of attitude of the incumbents towards long term investment and away from chasing short term subscriber share via price discounting; consolidation may well help with this, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient

European mobile service revenue growth again disappointed in Q4, dropping slightly from -8.9% to -9.1%, with underlying revenue growth dropping a little further from -6.0% to -6.3%, again reaching a record low

There had been hopes that improved GDP growth would drive a volume rebound, that price declines would start to annualise out, and that declining out-of-bundle usage would wane in its impact as this usage declined. In the event, ongoing price competition from smaller operators, MVNOs and quad play offerings, combined with surging use of OTT communications platforms, have dominated trends

In the medium term, the development of 4G and Vodafone’s Project Spring may bring some much needed network differentiation back to the market, allowing pricing power to return to the larger operators. However, it will be 2015-2016 before these factors come into play: in the short term, the main source of optimism is consolidation

H3G’s X-Series is not quite as innovative as it was presented to be, given that T-Mobile’s Web ‘n’ Walk is very similar in concept (flat rate data tariffs, 3rd party Internet services) and has been available since June 2005

Spain’s top football club FC Barcelona (Barça) has threatened to withdraw its broadcast licence from Sogecable unless it matches an offer from Mediapro that is almost double the current annual fee for the two football seasons commencing 2006/2007 

The present TV advertising slump appears due to a uniquely British combination of very rapid digital TV growth and singular advertising airtime regulations that include the Contract Rights Renewal (CRR) remedy 

Sogecable FY 2005 results recorded the first net profit (€7.7 million) since 2001, two and a half years after the merger with Vía Digital. With the after effects and restructuring costs of this merger behind it, the question we examine in this note is what growth can Sogecable's pay-TV business look forward to and what extra contribution will be made by the national free-to-air (FTA) analogue channel Cuatro, which launched on 7th November 2005?

Under rules agreed with the EC no one party could win all six packages. The surprise is that BSkyB has only won four, the other two going to Setanta. Although BSkyB has won the four ‘best-looking’ packages, it must pay an extra £97 million per annum for two thirds as many games