Meta's China risk is overstated: the spend from Chinese advertisers is diverse and resilient to everything short of a full-blown trade war.
Apple (and Tesla) are in the more precarious position of selling directly in-market, and face sharpening domestic competition.
Amazon's exit from selling in China still leaves it exposed: its marketplace strategy is built on Chinese sellers, whose potential routes to market are proliferating with local platforms going global.
BT’s Q3 was robust in financial terms, delivering revenue growth of 3% and EBITDA growth of 1%, both in-line/ahead of analyst expectations.
Strong broadband ARPU and accelerating FTTP performance at Openreach were the highlights, a weakening BT Business and continued Openreach broadband losses were the main concerns.
This year’s guidance should be easily met, next year’s will be trickier given lower price rises due in April, but the long-term plan of a massive cashflow turnaround when the FTTP build ends is still well on-track.
With a difficult price rise adjustment now behind it, VMO2’s subscriber momentum is much improved, in part aided by accelerated network expansion.
Backbook pricing remains under pressure on the fixed network with revenues down 1.2% in spite of sizeable price rises and footprint expansion—upcoming OTS may exacerbate this issue.
VMO2 has thus far only countered the downside of the UK’s fibre revolution. A new approach to branding and expansion of its addressable market are upside opportunities—with the ultimate potential to even deliver improvements on its previous position.
BT continued to perform well financially in Q2, with revenue and EBITDA growth remaining robust, and full year cashflow guidance nudged up.
ARPU growth remained robust across fixed, mobile and Openreach, but subscriber growth was weaker, especially in mobile and Openreach, and this will become more of a concern if it persists.
Maintaining growth across retail divisions will be a challenge as the price rise effect wanes, especially in weak economic conditions, and while Openreach’s FTTP roll-out is going well, full success is still not assured.
The metaverse is a radical expansion of online experiences— sparking a host of new safety challenges on harmful content, economic activity, and privacy.
Building safety into the metaverse will take a village: platforms and communities will set policies and moderation. Regulators could struggle to future-proof their tools, especially with decentralised platforms.
AI age verification and moderation is in a race against AI hazards: disinformation, deepfakes and dynamic user content all intensify harms in immersive settings.
Online retail is a prime arena for AI implementation, with a high degree of tech involvement and proximity to the point of sale
Generative AI’s near-term prospects are inflated by the hype cycle; instead, improvements to product discovery and logistics will be the next frontiers for growth and AI-driven efficiency
Retailers risk their reputations as they jostle for early mover advantage: larger players Amazon and Shopify through major investments, and SMEs with specialised data and licensing
Despite its scale, YouTube can get overlooked. But its tremendous reach and impact across all demographics make it the internet's universal service provider.
YouTube is still the golden child for creators who want to make a living from their content. For YouTube, this broad base of suppliers ensures a position of strength from which to claim a large revenue share.
Competition from TikTok took some of the shine off YouTube's usage, and forced it promote lower-monetising Shorts. YouTube is pushing heavily into subscriptions, TV sets, and premium content via sports rights to boost the money it makes per minute spent.
Electronic Arts’ earnings for Q1 2024 delivered strong annual growth across its licensed franchises but also a worrying lag in mobile game revenue due to mobile sector challenges.
EA’s global dominance of sports-based games, and its 700m users, make it a strong candidate to be a ‘strategic partner’ with Disney for ESPN’s reboot as a direct-to-consumer service.
The launch of EA Sports FC24 next month finally sheds FIFA from EA’s largest franchise and promises a dynamic approach to managing football partnerships, but no word on increased margins.
BT got its financial year off to a strong start in Q1, with Group revenue and EBITDA growth of 4%/5% both well on track to hit guidance of merely 'growth'.
Price rises across broadband, mobile and Openreach all landed well, driving strong ARPU growth of 5%/9%/10% respectively, but subscriber growth was likely weak, mainly reflecting a tough environment.
Growth is set to wane across the year as consumer price rise boosts start to re-contract out, leaving Openreach as the main growth driver for as long as the economic environment remains challenging.
Vodafone's headline revenue growth of +3.7% is actually a small decline once Rest of World exchange depreciation is accounted for. Europe, however, delivered an improving revenue trend to +0.4%, as signalled at Vodafone's FY results announcement.
The mix and operating trends are less positive, with growth driven by low-margin B2B, and subscriber losses accelerating in German fixed. Investors will be weighing up whether these results are green shoots of a recovery or another false dawn.
Although the company may reach its guided EBITDA on assumed exchange rates, it looks set to fall short in euro terms, which has implications for FCF and dividend cover.