Streaming profitability beckons, but owes much to the profitable services folded into companies’ DTC segments alongside the headline streamers.

There is a broader move towards bundling and price rises. The former bolsters subscriber additions and lifetime value but is ARPU-dilutive, while price rises will bump up both ARPU and churn.

2024 marks the first year with multiple players at scale in the ad space, as Prime Video entered the market. Other streamers with high CPMs and lower scale may be forced to re-examine their offerings.

Recent advances in 'Artificial Intelligence' have generated excitement, investment and improved valuations, on the plausible promise of greater efficiency in a range of areas, such as health and coding.

It is still not clear who will profit from this boom. Currently chip-maker NVIDIA is cleaning up, propelled by sales to model developers, also driving demand for cloud computing services.

Leverage in the AI value chain depends on differentiation and barriers to entry, which are high in the chips industry. AI services like chatbots have much lower barriers to entry, while deeper vertical integration of more stages of the value chain could shake things up.

Device makers regained their mojo at this year’s MWC, with phones a crucial route to generative AI becoming a daily habit. 

AI software has improved and proliferated, but limited differentiation leaves room for consolidation as a competitive funding crunch looms. 

Unanswered questions loom large, but won't dim AI's potential. 

Sony PlayStation’s next CEO will have hard decisions to make: compete against a resurgent multiplatform Microsoft, or retreat and defend an increasingly rickety PlayStation console model.

New gaming hardware will have an outsize influence in the year ahead, giving gamers unprecedented choice, starting with XR headsets and continuing to a likely new Nintendo Switch.

YouTube’s foray into browser-based games will be the service to watch in 2024. If successful, streaming services, including Netflix, will be on track to become heavyweight game platforms.

Cloud revenues are reflecting patterns of AI integration. As big tech companies jostle for advantage, Microsoft and Azure claim an early lead

Cloud profits remain crucial for wider tech businesses, affecting ability to innovate

Strategies to develop and market cloud-based AI tools are diverging, with uncertainty rife. The ecosystem will shift as the demands of consumers and regulators becomes clearer

Unable to match Netflix, financially-pressed Hollywood studios are cutting content output and reassessing the DTC model

Price rises are being forced through, however for challengers this is asking a lot from subs, who don’t see an improvement in product or usage

The corporate landscape is fluid—loss-making DTC platforms and revenue-plunging linear channels are candidates for M&A

YouTube has just introduced Primetime Channels in the UK, following launches in the US and Germany, becoming another video-content aggregator in a crowded market.

The US has carried YouTube's subscription revenue boom—layering on a premium video marketplace in the UK may prove harder to achieve.

Google's NFL Sunday Ticket package offers exclusive, high-end content to US consumers. Primetime Channels' UK launch just a few weeks before the Premier League auction is interesting timing, but will not change the game.

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. 

After a period of stagnation, many of the core business lines at the US tech mega-caps are back to posting respectable growth figures. The rest of the year will bed in strong revenue growth.

However, the sector is still facing a transition to new priorities. Core business strength should allow firms to shift from cost-cutting to the investment needed to fight the more competitive era they are facing.

AI is the number one focus, but the market for AI tools themselves is still nascent. Applying AI to internal problems has more promise. For instance, it is helping Meta solve its measurement and engagement problems.

Advertising activity has shifted dramatically from brand-building to activation in the past few years. Advertisers should resist the pressure to spend even more on activation: those that rebalance to brand building can gain a long-term competitive advantage.

Brand advertising works by building up memories and associations, supporting market share and pricing. This is done best by television, print, audio and out-of-home, but in a rapidly fragmenting media landscape online video and display can no longer just be a supporting act.

Investing in proper cross-channel audience measurement and planning will allow advertisers to use brand advertising effectively across all media, as well as supporting broadcaster and publisher ad revenue.