Week 19 in Telecoms, Internet, Media

CORPORATE

• Orange
• Reuters: plans to acquire TDF (= Brookfield Infrastructure, APG Asset Management, PSP Investments, Arcus Infrastructure Partners, Credit Agricole; 19k RTV & mobile towers, fiber in FR), rumored value EUR 5.9b; to merge with Totem
• Orange ES plans 485 (15%) job cuts
• Telefonica: Sells 4 datacenters (2 in ES, 2 in Chile) to Asterion for 20% stake in Nabiax (manages 11 datacenters already) to be held by Telefonica Infra (Asterion retains 80%)
• Tele Columbus (Morgan Stanley): Raises EUR 475m from capital increase for Fibre Champion strategy
• AT&T: Bloomberg: plans to merge Warner Media with Discovery (Liberty Media (John Malone) 30%); Discovery CEO David Zaslav to be CEO, WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar to lead D2C business
• Vimeo: Spin off from IAC 210525, symbol VMEO
• Amazon
• Brand Protection Report 2020: invested $700m, employed 10k people to protect stores from fraud & abuse; prevented 6m attempts, seized 2m products, blocked 10b listings, counterfeit complaints over <0.01% of all products sold
• Plans to raise debt, 8 tranches - Raises: 0.250% Notes due 2023 ($1b), 0.450% Notes due 2024 ($2.5b), 1.000% Notes due 2026 ($2.75b), 1.650% Notes due 2028 ($2.5b), 2.100% Notes due 2031 ($3b), 2.875% Notes due 2041 ($2b), 3.100% Notes due 2051 ($3.25b), 3.250% Notes due 2061 ($1.75b); all maturing May 12, total $18.5b - Prospectus supplement; gross proceeds $18.437b, net proceeds $18.395b, underwriting discounts & commissions $42m (10 manager banks, 6 co-managers) - 8K filing: to finance or refinance, in whole or in part, green or social Eligible Projects
• CEO Jeff Bezos sold shares 210507-10; started with 51,731,171 + 34 shares = 51,731,205 shares, ended with 51209269 shares [sold 521,936 shares at average ~3250 $/share = $1.70b]     
• To hire 75k employees in US for fulfillment & transportation, minimum wage 17 $/hr, sign-up bonus max $1000
• Redwood Software: Raises EUR 315m from Turn River Capital

EARNINGS

• Deutsche Telekom: 21Q1; raises guidance 2021
• Telefonica: 21Q1, FTTH in Spain reaches 25651 premises (take-up 29%), 5G covers 80%; shut down 769 copper exchanges in Spain (of total 8532), targets full fiber replacement by 2025; to close 3G in Spain 2025
• Telefonica Deutschland: 21Q1
• United Internet: 21Q1; confirms outlook 2021
• 1&1 Drillisch (United Internet 75.1%): 21Q1; to start 5G roll-out 21Q3; maintains outlook 2021: SR EUR 3.10b, EBITDA 650m (incl initial 5G costs 30m, excl 34.4m positive impact from adjusted MVNO deal)
• BT: 20/21Q4; plans FTTP JV to add 5m HP, raises target to 25m premises by 2026; Openreach plans copper switch-off at 77 locations (700k premises) from 220429, total 297 locations (2.9m premises)
• Walt Disney: 20/21Q2; to launch Star+ SVOD service in Latam 210831

NETWORKS

• Fixed
• IDATE for FTTH Council Europe report FTTH/B Market Panorama in Europe (EU39 at Sep 2020, bottom-up rerearch): 182.5m HP (52.5% coverage from 92% in Belarus to 5.6% in Belgium) o/w 39% incumbents, 57% altnets, 4% munis/utilities; 81.9m HA (44.9% take-up, from 70.7% in Iceland to 1.3% in Belgium); Homes left to be passed in EU27+UK from 34.7m in UK to 45k in Malta; total ~400 initiatives
• Ofcom (UK): average BB speed 2020 80 Mb/s (+25%)
• Proximus orders ultra dense vectoring (2MX6) from Nokia: raises # connections per cabinet (Proximus has 28k street cabinets) from 200 to 300 (later 400), bandwidth doubles from 17 to 35 MHz, power usage lower
• 5G
• Ericsson ConsumerLab 5G report (survey of 31k in 26 markets): 5G users spend 2 hr/week more using cloud gaming, 1 hr/week more on AR apps compared to 4G users
• Omdia for Orange report on 5G impact (economy, employment, emissions) in FR, ES, PL, BE, RO by 2030: value creation EUR 407b (o/w 25% in manufacturing), adds 420k jobs, avoids 33 Mt of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (equals city of Berlin) 

VIDEO

• Netflix: Considers adding bonus materials to orginals for N-Plus (production outtakes, cast interviews, bloopers, related video, podcasts, do-it-yourself content, user-generated music play lists)
• Amazon: Launches MiniTV in India: free AVOD, in-app (web-series, comedy shows, content around tech news, food, beauty, fashion etc)
• Google
• YouTube: Launches YouTube Shorts Fund in US, India, to pay out $100m in 2021-22; Shorts adds functionality
• Google Play launches Entertainment Space: feature (section in home screen) for Walmart tablets, to expand to Lenovo, Sharp, other Android tablets (one-stop, personalized home for all favorite movies, shows, videos, games, books, with recommendations)
• Walt Disney
• 20/21Q2 (per 210403): Disney+ (incl Disney+ Hotstar) net adds 8.7m to 103.6m; ESPN+ net adds 1.7m to 13.8m; shortened 45 day theater window for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (210903, Marvel) & Free Guy (210813, 20th Century), some films to go to Disney+ directly, some day&date in theater & Disney+ for Premier Access ($30; Cruella on 210528, Black Widow on 210709, Jungle Cruise (Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt) on 210730); to launch Star+ (incl Disney and ESPN content) in Latam 210831 as stand-alone SVOD service
• Hulu (Walt Disney, Comcast): 20/21Q2: reaches 41.6m subs (+2.2m), SVOD +2.4m, Hulu With Live TV -200k to 3.8m
• NBCUniversal (Comcast): Rotten Tomatoes (= Fandango) launches streaming service The Rotten Tomatoes Channel (24/7 loop of 100 hr of inear video), distr via Roku Channel, Peacock, XUMO
• WarnerMedia (AT&T): Average usage of HBO Max 2 hr/day
• Pinterest: Plans in-app live streaming event (trial) 24-25 May 2021 with 21 creators (with moderators, max 5 guests, unlimited viewers): fashion design, cooking, health, etc
• Regulatory
• Regal Cinemas (= Cineworld) agrees shorter theatrical window with Universal Pictures (NBCU), to share rev from Premium VOD [introduces a new window #2 for PVOD] - And with Walt Disney
• Cinemark (#3 theater chain US) partners with Netflix: to pre-release Netflix originals in theaters [short window #1]
• BIA Advisory Services for NAB report (Economic Impact of Big Tech Platforms on the Viability of Local Broadcast News): broadcasters lose 1.87b $/yr on local news to Google Search & facebook News

WEB SERVICES

• Facebook: Diem digital currency abandons Swiss license applications, moves to US, partners with bank Silvergate to issue a dollar-backed stablecoin
• Twitter: Developing Twitter Blue premium service, 3 $/mo with extra features: Collections (save & organize favorite tweets into collections), Undo Tweet (wait 5-30 sec before sending), possibly also Scroll (ad-free), Revue (newsletters)
• Apple: Plans expansion in advertising (App Store, Apple News+, Stocks app) - Counterpoint Research: new ads rev stream based on iOS 14.5 could be $60b (Apple ads replacing 3-rd party ads from Facebook & Google)
• Google tests feature for Chrome: Desktop Sharing Hub or Chrome Sharing Menu: generating a QR code, sharing to devices, casting a tab and other actions that revolve around sharing the current page to another person or device from a centralised location
• Regulatory
• Apple: Rachael Kent (King's College, University of London) starts mass-action claim over App Store fees
• Platforms: FTC appoints pro-separation legal scholar Lina Khan - Rumor: FTC to appoint Eyitayo St Matthew-Daniel (currently US DoJ) head of antitrust unit (300 employees)