Week 35 in Telecoms, Internet, Media

CORPORATE

• Eir: 20/21Q4; changes financial year end from 30 June to 31 December, from 2021; outlook 2021 (21H2): EBITDA growth LSD, capex/sales 21-23%, cash flow growth
• MTS: Proposes passive infra (towers in Tower Infrastructure Company) and active infra (fixed, data centre and cloud computing into MWS-1) spin-offs
• Eurofiber: Acquires Netiwan (FR; Béziers, Montpellier, Nîmes), to merge with FullSave; targets expansion to 25 French cities by 2025
• RTL: Rumor: Fremantle to acquire Lux Vide (prodco IT)
• Amazon: Plans to hire 55k for corporate and technology roles (40k at 220 locations US, 2500 in UK, remainder mostly in India, Germany, Japan; currently 275k globally; current UK total 55k) + 10s of 1000s for operations network, also Project Kuiper, plans annual job fair Careere Day 210915
• Facebook: DPC (Ireland) fines WhatsApp EUR 225m ($266m) over GDPR violations on transparency (gathering, usage, sharing with Facebook); plans appeal
• Apple:
• Plans to allow media apps (digital magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, video; not games with in-app purchases) to create in-app links to sign-up pages for outside payment options (to bypass Apple's cut of subscriptions) in response to antitrust investigation from Japan Fair Trade Commission, to apply globally from early 2022
• Rumor: talks with Asian car makers to launch Apple Car 2024

NETWORKS

• Deutsche Telekom: Network update DE:
• FTTH roll-out YTD 430k lines (total 30k km fiber) o/w 85k in July
• 5G pops coverage reaches 85% (total 55k antennea), target 90% YE 2021; 5G-3600 reaches 2400 antennea at 800 locations in >60 cities; SA 5G reaches 4 cities (testing)
• reconstruction in flooded areas progressing, 80% (80k HH) back online (parts of 17 towns to be rebuilt with FTTH, total 35k HH), 20k HH without fixed-line
• current FTTH capex budget EUR 2b per yr for 1.2m lines/yr, to add >8m lines in rural communicaties (<20k pops) by 2030; current nationwide network: 600k km fiber, 34.3m premises with 50-100 max Mb/s o/w 26.1m with 250 max Mb/s, 2.5m max 1 Gb/s (FTTH), plans 10m FTTH lines YE 2024, nationwide by 2030
• Axione (= Bouygues Energies & Services, Vauban Infrastructure Partners (= Natixis)) establishes Axione Fibre in UK to roll out OA wholesale-only FTTP in sub-urban & rural areas; to invest GBP 300m with equity partners; target 4m lines
• Rumor: Telefonica (Virgin Media O2) plans fiber network expansion in UK - Telefonica invites external investors, total cost EUR 4-5b
• 5G:
• Dai Nippon Printing Company (DNP) demos Reflect Array to reflect mmWave 5G
• DT partners with BMW for in-car 5G and Personal eSIM (linked to the customer's BMW ID) networking options: improved telephony quality, enables 5G Wifi hotspot for max 10 devices (for BMW iX), "turns the vehicle into another connected device for customers"
• Telia SE to develop farming robots, with Ekobot, Axis Comms, RISE
• John Deere to focus on NSA 5G for Industry 4.0
• Ericsson Mobility Report 21Q2 (update):
• total 8.1b subscriptions o/w 515m in W Europe (net adds 50m o/w 2m in W Europe), penetration 103% (W Europe 122%) at 6b subscribers (lower due to inactive subscriptions, multiple device ownership and/or optimization of subscriptions for different types of calls)
• MBB 6.8b (net adds 100m)
• 5G subscriptions with capable device 380m (net adds 84m)
• 4G subscriptions 4.8b (net adds 71m)
• total mobile data traffic 72 EB/mo (+44% yoy, +9% qoq)

MEDIA

• Linear TV:
• Screenforce TV ad market NL 21H1: EUR 406m (+32%), 2021E growth 20-25%
• Orange BE launches Orange TV Lite, 8.50 EUR/mo for Love or Home subs, with TVE apps for Android & iOS (Orange TV Plus, max 5 devices), with cloud DVR, 2 versions: Dutch (16 channels), French (20 channels)
• fuboTV: Launches free-to-play games & FanView live stats (out of beta), accompanying football
• Locast:
• Federal Judge denies Locast a summary judgement, allows copyright infringement lawsuit by ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC to continue (requirement to pay to avoid interruptions, is “not merely a recurring gift to a charitable cause”); has >3m users
• Suspends operations
• SVOD:
• Wurl issues first Churn Analysis Report 2021 on US: rev lost in 21Q1 $33m for HBO Max, $17m for Netflix, $15m for Hulu, $15m for Disney+; churn April 2021: Netflix 2%, Disney+ 4%, Hulu 4%. HBO Max 5%
• Leichtman Research survey US on SVOD Top 3 (Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu): 78% of HH subscribe to >= 1 (2020: 78%), 58% subscribe to >= 2 (2020: 55%)
• Music:
• Apple: Acquires Primephonic (classical music streaming, closes 210907, subs receive 6 mo free Apple Music), plans dedicated Apple Music Classical app 2022
• Amazon: FT: Amazon Music had 63m subs at 210331

REGULATORY

• Min EZK (NL) postpones 3.5 GHz auction (planned April 2022) due to Inmarsat use of 3.5 GHz for maritime comms, advisory committee to report 22Q1
• ECJ: zero-rated offers from Telekom DE (StreamOn) & Vodafone DE (Passes) violate EU Open Internet (NN) and roaming laws (based on cases from BNA against DT and VZBV against Vodafone, German courts referred both to ECJ); next BNA to rule on zero rating
• Italian government considers doubling investment obligations in Italian & European programmes to 25% of net rev by 2025