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March 19, 2020Mobile payments – billion dollar opportunity in New Zealand to [...]
Focus Report, ReportsPayments has emerged as one of the key areas of disruption. The shift from physical to electronic payments has seen an ever-expanding range of payment methods replacing cash. From mobile banking and contactless cards to phone payments and bespoke apps, the payment landscape is undergoing a quiet revolution.Sector Technology. -
March 18, 2020UK ITV FY 2019 results: Solid, but moving from one ubiquitous unc [...]
Focus Report, ReportsH2 revenue growth across Studios, advertising and online, saw ITV come in ahead of guidance in 2019, with external revenues up 3% YoY. Advertising revenue was down 1.5% for the year after being down 5% at H1. -
March 18, 2020Telecoms investment crucial. Help required
Flash Report, ReportsAt the Enders/Deloitte Media & Telecoms 2020 and Beyond conference the economic and policy importance of telecoms infrastructure was a major theme, particularly in the current climateSector Telecom. -
March 16, 2020Reaching sports audiences – All platforms necessary
Flash Report, ReportsFree-to-air broadcasters, pay-TV operators and OTT services all have a role to play in serving sports audiences -
March 13, 2020UK broadband, telephony and pay TV trends Q4 2019 – Shrinki [...]
Market Outlook, ReportsMarket revenue growth dipped to below zero in Q4 2019, as pricing pressures bite and smaller players gather shareSector Telecom. -
March 13, 2020Gaming’s mainstream decade – Five defining themes for the [...]
Focus Report, Reports2020 promises a year of transition for the games industry: eSports and games broadcasting are competing with traditional programming; game streaming services are becoming meaningful platform competition; and new consoles are on the way -
March 12, 2020GDPR after Brexit – UK citizens must keep protections
Flash Report, ReportsOliver Dowden, Secretary of State (SoS) for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport addressed the Media & Telecoms 2020 & Beyond Conference on 5 March. There was much to be encouraged by in his speech—he reiterated the importance of public service broadcasting, and the positive potential of technology. -
March 11, 2020
Disney+: Non-exclusive deal with UK Sky Q
Flash Report, ReportsAvailable from launch on March 24, at this stage there will be no bundling—Sky users will pay £5.99/month, either in their bill, or log-in having signed up direct from Disney—and as such there will likely be less co-promotion and prominence on the user interface than has been seen for Netflix. -
March 10, 2020Amazon Advertising: From Duopoly to Triopoly in advertising?
Focus Report, ReportsOver the past two decades, global ecommerce giant, Amazon has focused on owning entire market verticals with books being the first market that it dominated. However, to think of Amazon as just an online retailer, would be underestimating the depth and breadth of its presence across multiple markets. Amazon’s ultimate aim is to curate the customer’s entire e-commerce journey. Amazon not only sells products; it also produces television shows and movies; publishes books; operates the world’s largest streaming video-game platform; manufactures a growing array of products. More recently the bright spot was Amazon’s advertising business, which appears to be picking up speed again.Sector Media. -
March 9, 2020Webscale Playbook: Apple
Market Outlook, ReportsApple has come far since its inception in 1976. It has progressed from selling user-friendly computer systems (Macintosh, iMac) and portable media players (iPod), to become a dominant force in mobile devices, starting with the launch of iPhone in 2007. In August 2018 it became the first-ever public company to breach the US$1 trillion mark by market capitalization. In fact it is the ‘iPhone’, touted as the pioneer of the smartphone revolution, that has significantly helped Apple in its journey to trillion-dollar valuation. The popular device, which dethroned the likes of Nokia and Blackberry back then, continues to be Apple’s bread and butter, and accounts for more than half of its overall revenues (54.7% in FY2019).
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March 5, 2020Virgin Media UK: Pain before gain
Focus Report, ReportsVirgin Media’s subscriber base fell again in Q4, although strong ARPU growth allowed a slight acceleration in cable revenue growth to 1.8%, and a deceleration in OCF decline to 1%. Liberty Global group OCF guidance of mid-single digit decline in 2020 is likely to be mirrored at Virgin Media, as regulatory pressure and market competitiveness continue to bite, and mass-market demand for ultrafast remains nascent. -
March 4, 2020Nine 1H20 update – results in line with expectations
Flash Report, ReportsIn this report, we briefly analyse the reported 1HFY20 earnings for Nine and highlight some of the key trends across both businesses.Sector Media. -
March 3, 2020The BBC: Benefiting the UK creative economy
Focus Report, ReportsA monolith within the broadcasting landscape and the greater UK creative economy, the BBC, instructed by its Charter, is a guaranteed leader of investment in local and quality content, tech, regionality, and diversity -
March 2, 2020New Zealand Telco Market Outlook
Market Outlook, ReportsWe expect the overall retail telco market to remain almost flat (2019-2023 CAGR 0.4%) with mobile growth driven by a move to post-paid plans and 4G/5G to offset the structural decline in fixed voice. Total retail revenues will reach NZ$5.5bn in 2023 -
February 27, 2020Vocus 1H20 update: Network Services and New Zealand perform well, [...]
Focus Report, ReportsOn 19th February 2020, Vocus announced its 1HFY20 results which were largely in line with expectations. In 2019, Vocus had initiated a 3-year transformation process and an organisational restructure was part of this process. The company was organised into three groups. -
February 26, 2020UK Media consumption: The ‘surprising’ endurance of broadcast [...]
Market Outlook, ReportsDespite two decades of online disruption, the UK remains reliant on traditional platforms and brands across the media sector—more so for older cohorts, but also for younger generations. 13% of adults still do not use the internet and, in reality, an online-only media ecosystem remains a distant prospect. Traditional providers, particularly within TV, radio and news, look set to endure for the long term, aided by the trajectory of the UK’s ageing population -
February 25, 2020Insurtech White Paper Part II: Australian Insurtech Market Overvi [...]
Focus Report, ReportsThis is the second of three reports in Venture Insights’ series on Insurtech, following on from our discussion of trends in global insurtech. -
February 24, 2020Show me the money – broadcasters and sports rights on an unsust [...]
Focus Report, ReportsIt is Venture Insights’ view that traditional Australian broadcasters will be unable to fund further increases to the cost of tier one sports as they continue to suffer from declining revenues in hyper-competitive markets. As such, premium Australian sports are likely to further split their rights, selling portions to non-traditional telco or tech players. In the long-run, Australian sports may even look at selling their content direct to consumer through ‘over the top’ distribution models. -
February 21, 2020Seven 1H20 update – revenues fall in a declining market
Flash Report, ReportsIn this report, we briefly analyse the reported 1HFY20 earnings for Seven West Media and highlight some of the key trends across its businesses.Sector Media. -
February 20, 2020Consumers endorse Disney’s digital transition
Focus Report, ReportsRecruiting 29 million subscribers in twelve weeks, Disney+ has stormed the US market. Furthermore, the two million gain achieved after the holidays and the completion of The Mandalorian, relatively high ARPU, and rising Hulu and ESPN+ subscriptions bode well. Conversely, booming (but expected) losses of direct-to-consumer platforms—due to increase as Disney+ launches in Europe in March—are undermining group profitability -
February 19, 2020Telstra and Optus: Falling ARPUs, increase in price sensitive mar [...]
Focus Report, ReportsTelstra and Optus reported earnings on 13th February 2020. While Telstra reported its 1HFY20 earnings, Optus reported its 3QFY20 earnings. In this report, we have analysed some of the key trends observed across the two major telcos and compared these with Venture’s Australian telco market outlook and forecasts. -
February 17, 2020
Vodafone plods on
Focus Report, ReportsVodafone’s revenue performance remains decidedly lacklustre. Italy and Spain are struggling to bounce back, Germany is still languishing, and the UK’s 0.6% service revenue growth is the highlight of the quarter. Liberty Global’s assets are disappointing both in terms of opening financials (revenues and EBITDA 8% and 12% lower than expected respectively) and outlook (now growing at half the rate at the time of deal announcement and guidance for Germany as a whole to be ‘flattish’). Vodafone’s guidance for a pickup in revenue growth to more than 1% in Q4 is encouraging but these are very tentative steps forward in challenging timesSector Telecom. -
February 14, 2020TalkTalk UK: FibreNation sorted but challenges remain
Focus Report, ReportsTalkTalk’s subscriber base and revenue fell again in Q3, and ARPU continued to decline despite good growth in its higher ARPU (but even higher wholesale cost) high speed base. The sale of FibreNation to CityFibre and the accompanying wholesale deal provides much needed cash and de-risking, although the migration to full fibre still brings challenges to TalkTalk given its low price focus. TalkTalk’s shorter term operational outlook is also still very challenging, with growing EBITDA in 2020/21 particularly difficult given stable/declining ARPU and the rising wholesale costs of migrating to high speed broadband -
February 13, 2020New Zealand 5G update: Still waiting on spectrum auctions with 2d [...]
Focus Report, ReportsAs New Zealand moves towards mass-scale 5G rollout, competition among telcos is forming and the debate around the spectrum sharing is intensifying. Limited 5G services are now being offered by Spark and Vodafone to select customers and they are counting on being able to provide mobile, fixed wireless and IoT services using the same network in the near future to increase their revenues. In this report, we look at the readiness of NZ consumers to move to 5G, the current state of critical spectrum holdings and the key 5G developments in NZ in 2019.Sector Telecom.
