The planned merger of Vodafone and H3G in Australia has raised the question of what consolidation could occur in Europe, although a direct analogy is not appropriate because Vodafone is much weaker in Australia (#3 operator) than it is in the larger European countries, and so would face much more regulatory scrutiny in Europe

The only merger opportunities in the top five markets which would have a similar or lower theoretical impact on competition (and hence would theoretically be as easily approved) in the top five European countries would be T-Mobile and H3G in the UK, Wind and H3G in Italy, and any operator with Yoigo in Spain

There are massive cost savings to be had from in-market consolidation, with network, marketing and general administration costs all fully overlapping between operators. The non-merging players would also enjoy a period of less competitive intensity, which may last indefinitely

The iPhone has inspired all the major Smartphone makers to launch touchscreen models, and dramatically improve the usability of their interfaces. The iPhone itself remains the most easily usable touchscreen handset in our view, although at the cost of speed of use and adaptability

Unfortunately, the characteristics that make these handsets easier to surf the internet with – large screens and/or QWERTY keyboards – are just the characteristics that are unlikely to trickle down into mass market handset models, meaning that the impact on mobile data usage is limited

We continue to believe that web browsing is unlikely to be popular on mass market handsets for the foreseeable future, but usage of web services can be popularised by more of a widget approach, which the cheap but smart INQ1 handset demonstrates well

Vodafone’s December quarter KPIs showed only slightly worse underlying European revenue growth compared to last quarter, with another plummet in growth in Spain moderated by improving figures in Germany

In the context of GDP growth across its markets being considerably worse, this is a relatively good performance, with its market share loss likely to prove less severe than last quarter

However, its growth is still very substantially worse than earlier in the year, even compared to GDP, and with GDP declines set to worsen through 2009, and termination rate cuts to bite again in the second half of 2009, growth is likely to decline further

On next generation access, the interim Digital Britain report has little new to say, but leaves the door open to using public money to help implement it. We think the chance of this happening as part of a ‘deal’ with fixed network operators has increased

On mobile spectrum, the report instructs the mobile operators to agree between themselves a solution to the most contentious issue, 2G spectrum redistribution, or face a solution being imposed. We doubt they will agree, leaving the government to decide and enforce a way forward

On universal broadband, the government is aiming for a 2 Mbit/s commitment. It is early days, but we expect a hybrid wireline/wireless solution, paid for by a combination of government funding, and/or a levy on industry players based on share of industry revenue, which we expect will be fiercely resisted

The CC determination on mobile termination rates (MTRs), if implemented, would result in a cumulative 4% reduction in UK mobile industry revenue and EBITDA by the 2010/11 financial year, but a small boost to fixed line industry EBITDA

However, even this cut does not make up for the termination rate cut ‘holiday’ that the UK mobile industry has been enjoying for the last 2-3 years, with MTRs still high in relation to retail tariffs by historic standards

On the positive side (for the MNOs), this means that increased competitive pricing pressure is unlikely in the short term; on the negative side we still expect substantial further cuts from April 2011. These cuts are broadly lagging those in the rest of Europe, so there is no negative read-across for most European MNOs

Carphone Warehouse’s distribution business felt the recessionary chill for the first time in the December quarter, but its like-for-like organic growth of -1% was still far better than other consumer electronics retailers have fared

The market outlook is unfortunately still worsening. While we still expect Carphone Warehouse to outperform its competitors, its results are likely to get worse before they get better

In fixed line, net broadband additions were reasonable at TalkTalk but negative again at AOL. We are sceptical of the prospects for subscriber growth at AOL, and earlier guidance of 200-250k broadband net adds for the year to March now looks unlikely to be met

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