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Nitesh Patel
| Aug 08, 2017
Since the end of 2013 Facebook has become a significant platform for sharing and distributing video content for its users and media companies and brands. ...
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| Aug 07, 2017
In a survey with over 1,000 respondents from the AppOptix mobile consumer panel, Strategy Analytics found that over half of them use their personal mobile devic...
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User Not Found
| Jul 21, 2017
Nine months after announcing its intention to acquire Time Warner, AT&T last weekend opened the doors of the Warner Bros studio in Burbank, CA, to a mixed a...
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Nitesh Patel
| Jul 14, 2017
Since its launch almost one year ago EE’s 6-month free Apple Music promotion has been so successful that EE has decided that starting from 19th July 2017 ...
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User Not Found
| Jul 07, 2017
On July 6, 2016, Niantic Labs released Pokémon GO and within months it swiftly reached rock star status in the app ecosystem as one of the most download ...
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User Not Found
| Jun 21, 2017
Strategy Analytics has been talking about the transformation of television for many years. The latest analysis http://sa-link.cc/1kn from our TV & Media Str...
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User Not Found
| Mar 03, 2017
Snapchat ran with the proverbial bulls! After the much anticipated IPO, Snapchat’s parent company Snap, Inc. (NYSE Ticker: SNAP) stock closed its inaugura...
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User Not Found
| Feb 22, 2017
Long battery life is consistently among the most important purchasing decision factors among smartphone buyers. It’s certainly within my top 5 list, along...
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Kevin Nolan
| Feb 21, 2017
In a blog post on Kickstarter, ZTE has announced that it has killed off the ‘Hawkeye’ phone – the device which it planned to develop via a gro...
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User Not Found
| Feb 17, 2017
We all know that smartphones have become essential gear for virtually everyone – and the frequency by which consumers use their smartphone is but one meas...
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Nitesh Patel
| Feb 15, 2017
Yesterday, Facebook announced several video related updates which I believe will have a positive impact for several reasons, and which opens up the question of ...
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User Not Found
| Feb 02, 2017
When comparing network data use between Strategy Analytics AppOptix panelists in the U.S. and India, network use in India stands at approx. 300MB/user/day (for ...
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User Not Found
| Jan 27, 2017
With the buzz of announcements from CES 2017 in the rear view mirror, which included media reports that Amazon’s Echo (aka, Alexa) stole the show, I thoug...
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User Not Found
| Dec 22, 2016
In an age of ever increasing app permissions, can the threat of even more intrusion get app users to change their behavior? The popular notetaking app Evernote ...
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User Not Found
| Dec 21, 2016
As a publicly funded institution with an internationally recognised brand, the BBC has always played a prominent role in media in the UK as well as in many othe...
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User Not Found
| Dec 21, 2016
The BBC recently made available an Ultra HD version of sample material from its Planet Earth II production. Initially it was published to the iPlayer app on cer...
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User Not Found
| Dec 12, 2016
For two days, 30 November and 1 December, a surprisingly dry Helsinki was swamped by Slush, Europe’s largest annual start-up event. The stage was (literal...
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User Not Found
| Dec 11, 2016
Welcome to Strategy Analytics’ Second AppOptix blog, the aim of which is to post what I hope will be short, pithy, and interesting data bits pulled from t...
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User Not Found
| Dec 09, 2016
The recent meeting between US president elect Donald Trump and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son is causing observers to imagine a merger between SoftBank's Sprint and T-Mobile USA, after Mr Son abandoned the idea two years ago due to regulatory opposition. The meeting may have repercussions in the UK and other countries in terms of softening regulators' opposition to the merger of mobile operators.
Three UK was denied its planned merger with Telefonica's O2 UK in mid 2016 after the opposition of the UK regulator was confirmed by the European Commission. 3 Group is currently taking the EC to court in an appeal against the verdict. The similarity to the US/SoftBank situation is clear.
The arrival of Mr Trump as president elect is also similar to the UK's Brexit vote and the arrival of a new British prime minister plus her newly appointed top politicians. In both cases, a new populist/nationalist approach will allow business rules to be re-set.
An SCIm mantra is: 'What cannot go on, will not go on.' So it is with Three UK: denied the merger with Telefonica's O2 UK, and yet successful in Italy in merging with Vimpelcom's Wind, 3 Group remains sub-scale in the UK with insufficient resources to invest in 4G rollout (never mind 5G). In Italy on the other hand it now ranks joint #1 in mobile alongside Telecom Italia and ahead of Vodafone, in terms of scale. The new JV will be able to implement a recovery plan for 4G and later 5G rollout in Italy.
Three UK needs something to change, if it is to recover. It is not the style of its ultimate owner, Mr Li Ka-shing, approximately the 20th wealthiest person in the world, to settle for status-quo when that cannot deliver expected results. Three UK currently competes against the three other larger mobile operators by hitting a sweet-spot in consumer pricing while offering an indifferent mobile data experience, with relatively weak 4G coverage. However sweet the pricing, if the mobile user experience is too poor, subscribers will flee - as happened with Sprint in the USA.
Much more attractive to Three UK than any gradual organic recovery would be a merger., instantly doublling, tripling its scale or more. This is why Three UK wanted to buy O2, and why it merged with Wind. So if 3 Group Europe wins its case against the EC; if the regulatory climate softens after any Sprint/T-Mobile merger, or even if none of this comes about, then new scenarios may emerge.
The illustration below explores some options at high level. It should not be a massive surprise if Three UK tries to merge with O2 again, or with Vodafone UK (in spite of a difficult experience in Australia along those lines - but with lessons learned), or with a media company if regulators remain opposed to four mobile operators concentrating into three. One can imagine for example a 3/Vodafone JV where Vodafone prioritizes enterprise and premium consumer users, and Three UK prioritizes value consumer users. Or a scenario where Three UK merges with Sky, which has just begun an MVNO service with Telefonica.
These scenarios are explored in greater detail in SCIm's new report on the subject, and in the new Dossier on 3 Group Europe in SCIm. For now, just remember: what cannot go on, will not go on!
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