H3G Europe improved its revenue growth and margins in 2010, albeit not by as much as its headline figures claimed. It is currently growing at 5% with EBIT at around breakeven

Given that its parent company is likely to want to keep EBIT positive, it is likely to be constrained on future investment in subscriber growth, limiting its potential going forward

The UK was particularly strong, with dramatically improved contract subscriber growth, and margins improving despite this, driven by the completion of the T-Mobile network share implementation helping margins and the smartphone revolution playing to the company’s 3G network strengths

Ofcom is proposing to design the 800MHz and 2.6GHz spectrum auctions to ensure that the UK mobile market remains at four players, through a complex set of rules largely designed to help H3G get the spectrum it needs to remain competitive

However, the sting in the tale is that Ofcom expects H3G to pay around £600m for this spectrum, which it may not want to do, and it is not clear what the backup plan would then be

We expect the general theme of regulators seeking to protect a fourth player to repeat across Europe and across regulatory areas, especially as the US market may consolidate towards three with AT&T’s proposed takeover of T-Mobile USA

European mobile revenue growth improved very slightly in Q4 2010, up by 0.1ppt in reported and 0.2ppts in underlying terms, but remained negative

While the improvement is welcome, growth remains very subdued compared to pre-recession levels, especially in Italy and Spain, which continue to lag the growth of the UK, Germany and France

The outlook for mobile revenue growth is bleak, with severe MTR cuts in Germany and the UK likely to drive growth down again over the next six months

In this short presentation we show our analysis of trends in UK broadband and telephony to December 2010, based on the published results of the major service providers. We include our own estimates where reported data is incomplete. This quarter’s edition includes a look at Ofcom’s recent research into broadband speeds and its response to the Advertising Standards Authority’s review of broadband advertising.

Smartphones are rapidly moving to become a majority of UK mobile handset sales, driving a surge in mobile internet use. Even if usage per user (currently growing) flattens out, we forecast mobile internet usage to grow from 1.8bn hours in 2010 to 7bn in 2015: 28% of total online time

This should drive the long promised growth in mobile advertising and we project UK spend, including search and display, will rise to £420 million by 2015, equivalent to 10% of PC internet search/display advertising

We expect the majority of this usage to be incremental to PC-based consumption, as users find new things to do and buy on the mobile web, driving the overall online advertising market to further growth

By 2015 we expect internet-centric smartphone penetration in the UK to reach 75% and mobile internet use to reach 28% of total time spent online. The dynamics and ecosystems of the mobile internet, and in particular the app model, will become a significant part of overall digital strategies

First seen as an interim reaction to slow networks and small screens, mobile apps have become a major new route to market for publishers and ecommerce providers, and are likely to spread to new areas

However, Apple is likely to continue to lose share in the internet-centric smartphone market, and publishers will face a far messier, fragmented world of competing platforms, app stores and payment systems