Google Play, the digital content platform from Google for Android devices, has added a music subscription service to the sale of music, ebooks, videos and apps.

All Access, available only in the US initially, benefits from integration in Google Play, the default storefront on Android smartphones and tablets (excepting Amazon’s Kindle Fire). All Access isn’t available on Apple devices, in the majority in the US, severely limiting its reach.

Google’s main objective with Google Play is to support the Android ecosystem and attract and retain Android device owners, and thus OEMs and developers. We expect Google Play to operate slightly above break even like iTunes.

As smartphones have grown in the UK, so has mobile use of social networks However, mobile messaging services that offer an alternative channel to Facebook have become almost as important Meanwhile analysis by smartphone platform shows that iPhone users continue to have a higher propensity to install and use apps than do Android users. Android skews young and lower income, and messaging apps in particular start as a means to save money (though they are now much more than that), but even in this category iPhone users appear to care more

The completion of digital switchover has left an equilibrium between the digital satellite, cable and terrestrial platforms that is not expected to alter significantly by 2020

The main anticipated change over the forecast period is pay-TV subscription take-up where the 50/50 split between pay and free TV households is expected to rise steadily to 60/40, or even 67/33 if we include more individually-, as opposed to household-, based OTT online services such as Netflix, LoveFilm or Sky’s NOW TV

Most of the pay-TV subscription growth will occur at the lower end of the price range among BT Vision and TalkTalk customers, where the popularity and success of YouView will be critical in driving subscriber growth as TiVo has been and will be to Virgin Media holding its ground

Apple’s numbers have got so good they’re bad: after growing at over 50% for two years, relative revenue growth has, inevitably, slowed. The products remain very strong, and direct competitors continue to have little impact. (Apple’s mobile phone market share has never been higher, for example.) However, the premium phone market itself, which the iPhone dominates, is at a potential tipping point.

In January 2013, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cleared Google of anticompetitive practices in its core search and advertising business – a corresponding European antitrust investigation is pending, but looks set to take a (slightly) stricter stance on Google.

The FTC’s closing of the search bias investigation is key to Google’s strategy to integrate and expand its general and vertical search products, such as its e-commerce channels Google Shopping and Google Maps, with direct positive revenue implications.

The European Commission will most likely not impose search bias remedies later this year that significantly impact Google’s current practices, and we therefore have a positive outlook on additional vertical search revenues materialising.

Facebook has announced Home, an Android app that takes control of your phone, replaces the home screen with your Facebook newsfeed and relegates any competing social services to, it hopes, an afterthought.

At launch, Home will be available to at most 20% of Facebook’s mobile base. It is an interesting tool to lock in core users and drive up their engagement, but can only be part of Facebook’s mobile strategy.

Facebook has strong mobile user and revenue growth, but has not ‘won’ social on mobile as it has on the desktop, and competing services have drawn hundreds of millions of users. It is not yet clear Facebook will win, or even that there will be a single big winner.

Next-generation consoles from Sony and Microsoft, expected late this year/early next, will kick off a new cycle for the games industry, but enter a much more competitive market

Smartphones and tablets offer an alternative gaming model, with more variety, lower cost, greater convenience and, crucially, rapidly increasing sophistication

These new platforms are expanding gaming to a much larger audience, but also increasingly competing with consoles for the time and attention of core gamers. This could be the last recognisable console cycle

Last week Samsung updated its flagship Galaxy S smartphone with a solid incremental upgrade that will cement its dominance of the high-end of Android, helped by a $14.7bn marketing budget and wide distribution

Impact will be strongest on other Android OEMs: the preceding S3 was heavily outsold by the iPhone and the new model is unlikely to change this, with similar design and positioning

Samsung’s launch event found room for a tap-dancing child and a live orchestra, but Google and Android were invisible. Samsung is clearly trying to relegate Android to a commodity and make its own brand dominant

Enders Analysis co-hosted its annual conference, in conjunction with BNP Paribas and Deloitte, in London on 15 January 2013. The event featured talks by 14 of the most influential figures in media and telecoms, and was chaired by Sir Peter Bazalgette.

Slides from the presentations by the following speakers at the Media & Telecoms: 2013 & Beyond conference on 15 January 2013:

•Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP
•Michael Tobin, CEO, Telecity Group
•Liv Garfield, CEO, Openreach
•Dido Harding, CEO, TalkTalk Group
•Victor Zhang, CEO, Huawei UK & Ireland
•Cindy Rose, Executive Director of Digital Entertainment, Virgin Media