Latest Reports
Latest Reports
Venture Insights reports inform and enable better decision making through independent, objective, and high quality insights, analysis and thought leadership across the media, digital and telco industries in Australia and New Zealand and with global insight from our European partner, Enders.
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September 24, 2020Australian Advertising Market Outlook 2020: COVID-19 impact will [...]
Market Outlook, ReportsThe story of the year is obviously the impact of COVID 19 and the associated economic slowdown. The -6.8% decline in FY20 AdEx will, among other things, hasten the trend to digital advertising. -
September 17, 2020Australia consumer and SMB broadband pricing trends – Broadband [...]
Focus Report, ReportsBroadband services are critical enablers for access to information, employment, markets and key services. Consumer demand for broadband services has grown rapidly in the last decade with household penetration increasing to 85% in 2019 compared to 64% in 2009. This report analyses the competitive environment in the fixed broadband market, focussing on consumer price trends. In particular, we analyse the major RSPs – Telstra, Optus, TPG and Aussie Broadband to evaluate their broadband offerings in the retail market. -
September 7, 2020Australian Small Business Survey: 5G broadband battleground for O [...]
Focus Report, ReportsThis report presents the survey results across 602 small businesses and highlights their views on willingness to pay, churn intentions and their views on 5G mobile and fixed wireless broadband. The survey was targeted towards the IT decision makers in small businesses, which this survey defined as having an employee count of between 5 – 20 employees. -
September 2, 2020CNNO Playbook: Crown Castle
Flash Report, ReportsThe big three U.S. telcos (AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile) have historically owned and operated their own towers. However, with rising debt and heavy costs involved in deploying the networks, the big three telcos spun off their tower assets to independent tower companies. AT&T and T-Mobile sold their tower business to Crown Castle; and Verizon disposed of its tower assets to American Tower. It was a win win situation for both the parties, as telcos could monetize their tower assets and pay off their debts. In exchange, tower companies could gain a long term customer. The exit of the big three telcos from the tower space led to the market dominance of American Tower, Crown Castle and SBA in the U.S. tower market segment. -
August 31, 2020Nine, Seven results: COVID impact disguises accelerating FTA reve [...]
Focus Report, ReportsAs we have said previously, the FTA advertising revenue market faces major structural headwinds as audiences transition away from linear television. Both Seven and Nine reported declines in their core FTA advertising businesses in FY19 and FY20. The decline in linear FTA advertising revenue in 1H20, before COVID-19 hit, was 7% YoY. This was an acceleration of the decline compared to FY19, but the effect was of course swamped by the impact of COVID-19 in the second half. As expected, COVID-19 had a disruptive and negative impact, particularly in Q4. This is reflected in the FY20 revenue results, but will flow through into FY21 because the longer-term economic impacts of COVID-19 shutdowns have yet to be felt. To counter this trend and the one-off impact of COVID-19, Seven and Nine are managing the decline of the FTA market by following through with their investments in digital platforms (BVOD), improving yields on existing content, developing programmatic and addressable TV solutions, and cutting costs. SevenWest and Nine were also able to make gains in cost reduction and new revenue growth that kept them in the black. These green shoots give some hope for a digital rebound in the wake of the COVID-19 disruption. However, it will be several years before BVOD is enough to significantly offset FTA declines.Sector Media. -
August 27, 2020The Australian tower market 2020
Focus Report, ReportsThis report assesses the Australian mobile communications tower market and the drivers for tower and small cell demand in Australia. The rollout of 5G and renewed interest in small cell technology is an opportunity to reconsider the financing and ownership of potentially shareable infrastructure. -
August 27, 2020Webscale Playbook: Tencent
Flash Report, ReportsTencent’s meteoric rise into one of the leading internet businesses coincides with China’s internet boom that started at the end of 20th century. According to the ITU estimates, just ~1.8% of China’s total population were internet users in the year 2000 – two years after Tencent was founded – that has now exploded to about 64%. Tencent’s initial journey began with the desktop-based instant messaging offering, QQ (initially QICQ), which slowly gained popularity and provided the company with a strong footprint in the domestic market. The start of the new decade saw more users going mobile with the increased cellphone penetration in the country, which led Tencent to launch its popular mobile instant messaging app, WeChat (Weixin in China) in 2011. -
August 27, 2020New Zealand Telco Market Outlook
Market Outlook, ReportsWe anticipate a negative-growth telecommunications market over the next few years, with broadband growth offset by declines in mobile and fixed voice. -
August 25, 2020UK mobile market in Q2 2020 – Recovery interrupted
Market Outlook, ReportsThe sector was hit harder than expected by COVID-19 with service revenues declining by 7% overall vs a decline of just 1.6% in the previous quarter. Many telecoms operators across Europe have become more negative on the near-term outlook than they were a couple of months ago with full year guidance now downgraded by almost all players -
August 24, 2020UK broadband, telephony and pay TV trends Q2 2020 – Things [...]
Market Outlook, ReportsConsumer broadband, telephony and pay TV market revenue growth plummeted to -6% in Q2 (from -2% in Q1), with all of the ‘big 4’ operators’ revenue growth taking a substantial hit. The reduction in premium sports channel revenue was by far the largest factor, with there being some other lockdown-related negative factors, such as the opportunity cost effect of extra services offered for free by the operators to help their customers during the crisis -
August 21, 2020Virgin Media UK – Indeterminately boosted
Flash Report, ReportsVirgin Media had its strongest subscriber performance for years in Q2, with its (ex-Project Lightning) existing base footprint showing positive growth to add to the subscribers gained on its Project Lightning network extension. This was partly due to temporary factors, with both Openreach and Sky not able to do in-home installations for part of the quarter, but the company has reported some sustained momentum, with the crisis boosting demand for higher speed broadband, and has decided not to implement its usual annual price increase in H2 to avoid the usual accompanying churn and customer dissatisfaction, instead choosing to prioritise subscriber growth to compensate for the ARPU shortfall. -
August 20, 2020Optus 1QFY21 and Vocus FY20 earnings update: revenues fall amidst [...]
Flash Report, ReportsBoth Optus’ and Vocus’ revenues were impacted by COVID-19. Both operators saw mobile revenues decline in the last quarter, as consumers relied more on fixed broadband while working from home. Pre-COVID-19, we noted rising pressure on mobile ARPUs due to competition and increased consumer interest in cheaper plans. We forecast that COVID-19 would exacerbate these pressures, and this has been validated by Vocus’, Optus’ and Telstra’s results this week. -
August 18, 2020BT UK – COVID-19 hit, fibre promise
Flash Report, ReportsBT’s first full quarter under the shadow of COVID-19 revealed a mix of negative impacts not entirely as predicted, by ourselves or indeed BT itself. The suspension of sport certainly had an impact on BT Sport revenue, but only about half of what we had feared (less than £50 million versus around £100 million), and Openreach was also relatively unaffected, perhaps having returned to full service levels quicker than anticipated. There was a strong negative impact on B2B revenue, but this was much more focused on SMEs than large corporates, with Global’s financials largely unaffected (so far), and mobile (which BT had not specifically warned about) was hit hard across consumer and (especially) B2B, with the results of the other mobile operators suggesting that the effect was market-wide. -
August 18, 2020ITV UK H1 2020 results
Focus Report, ReportsThere may be light at the end of the tunnel. After Q2 advertising revenues dropped 43% YoY, ITV has noted that there has been an upward trajectory (July down 23%, August appearing to be even better). This would leave ITV’s advertising revenues down between 15-25% for 2020 (ITV is unwilling to give forecasts). It appears that advertisers are beginning to think further ahead than they have for months—anecdotally, while around 80% of ad revenue is normally booked prior to the month’s start, this had reversed to about 20% in Q2. -
August 17, 2020Telstra and nbn Co FY20 update: increasing wireless and enterpris [...]
Focus Report, ReportsTelstra’s and nbn Co’s FY20 results show the early impact of COVID-19, but also contain indications of underlying shifts in the industry. We expect rising competition for fixed broadband subscribers as the mobile network owners (MNOs) try to maximise returns from the 5G mobile investment by launching 5G fixed wireless. Telstra’s announcement it will roll out 5G fixed wireless will step up this rivalry. -
August 14, 2020Update: Foxtel SVOD growth can’t prevent major restructure
Flash Report, Focus Report, ReportsLast year we reported on Foxtel’s battle with its OTT rivals, and its attempt to capture a share of the OTT market. In 2019, we had a number of concerns about Foxtel. With the release of the News Corp FY20 results on 11 August 2020, this report examines whether our concerns were justified. In summary, we think that the last twelve months have largely borne them out, with the exception of Kayo cannibalisation.Sector Media. -
August 12, 2020Art of the deal – Microsoft swoops for TikTok
Flash Report, ReportsMicrosoft hopes to buy TikTok from Chinese owner ByteDance before President Trump’s Executive Order halts transactions with the company in mid-September. Twitter is now in the game, but is unlikely to prevail -
August 12, 2020O2 UK: COVID and loss of Carphone bite
Flash Report, ReportsAlong with the rest of the mobile market, O2’s results were harder-hit by COVID than expected, with service and total revenues down by 9% and 4% respectively -
August 11, 2020Sky UK Q2 2020 results – Emerging from the worst?
Flash Report, ReportsSport is back, but its recent hiatus amid the COVID-19 crisis hit Sky hard, with Q2 revenue plunging 12.9% year-on-year. EBITDA remains flat for now, with sports rights cost absorption postponed but not cancelled -
August 6, 2020The New Era of Voice Commerce: Be in It to Win It
Market Outlook, ReportsThe rise of voice technology is transforming the way we consume information and make purchases, giving customers the option to engage in a hands-free and seamless shopping experience.