Apple’s iPhone launch event was relatively light on iPhone, which shared the stage with games, TV, Watch, iPad and retail announcements

This reflects Apple’s developing priorities: as iPhone sales soften, it needs to find new ways to extract value from the wealthy user base it has spent a decade nurturing

Apple has embraced this new strategy, offering a range of cheaper points of entry into its ecosystem, making the lost profits back on accessories or content subscriptions

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Amazon’s recent deals with Apple in TV, music and device sales mark a turning point after a decade of frosty relations

The context for this involves shifting priorities at both firms, growing pressure on Apple’s iPhone business, and rivals in common — first and foremost Google, but also the likes of Netflix and Spotify

The uneasy alliance helps both companies consolidate their strengths in the platform competition over media and the connected home — but trouble already brews

In the attached report, we present an analysis of UK handset sales over the online channel, using data sourced from Mobileshop.com, an online comparison handset sales site. Mobileshop.com presents offers from all major online mobile shops, including those from the operators and the major independent retailers, covering handsets, datacards and SIM-only offerings, across prepay and contract connections. In this, our first report, we have focused on issues relating to the market structure and broad market share figures, and our future quarterly updates will focus more on emerging trends

European mobile revenue growth has declined again, from 1.4% to 0.5%, despite favourable movements in regulatory factors, which imply an underlying drop in growth of about 2 percentage points

Vodafone’s European organic service revenue growth dropped again in the September quarter, to -1.3%, and we estimate that it continues to underperform its competitors’ growth by two percentage points, thus losing market share. Margins also fell, as the company’s cost reduction measures continue to fail to stop costs rising

The UK business (EAUS) is continuing to improve ahead of guidance as expected and its turnround can now be judged a success. Management has announced an aggressive plan to extract synergy from the recently acquired Thus

The Nokia Comes With Music (CWM) service bundles a music-centric handset with an unlimited music downloads service, allowing consumers to easily take advantage of their handsets’ music functionality, and have no need for a separate iPod

Distribution connection numbers were strong (+9%), especially on contract (+21%), despite a reduction in store expansion and the consumer slowdown which is affecting other consumer electronics businesses

The long awaited first Android-driven handset was launched this week, and with the Google logo emblazoned on the back it has been swiftly christened the Googlephone

European revenue growth fell to 1.4% in the quarter, down 0.8ppts from 2.2% last quarter, driven primarily by Spain where growth fell 4.1ppts. The deterioration was despite an improvement in the regulatory conditions, and underlying growth fell by 1.0ppts, with Italy slowing rapidly