[japaul]

O2 UK results for January-March 2013:
http://www.telefonica.com/en/shareho...ados2013.shtml


Mobile service revenue: £1174m (2012 Q4: £1202m, 2012 Q1: £1266m)

Mobile Customers (Total): 22.910m (2012 Q4: 22.864m, 2012 Q1: 22.325m)
Mobile Customers (Prepay): 10.758m (2012 Q4: 10.963m, 2012 Q1: 11.163m)
Mobile Customers (Contract): 12.152m (2012 Q4: 11.901m, 2012 Q1: 11.163m)

Smartphone penetration: 47% (2012 Q4: 45%, 2012 Q1: 41%)


EE results for the same period in this post
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showt...=#post65527138

[Everything Goes]

Quote:

Originally Posted by japaul

O2 UK results for January-March 2013:
http://www.telefonica.com/en/shareho...ados2013.shtml


Mobile service revenue: £1174m (2012 Q4: £1202m, 2012 Q1: £1266m)

Mobile Customers (Total): 22.910m (2012 Q4: 22.864m, 2012 Q1: 22.325m)
Mobile Customers (Prepay): 10.758m (2012 Q4: 10.963m, 2012 Q1: 11.163m)
Mobile Customers (Contract): 12.152m (2012 Q4: 11.901m, 2012 Q1: 11.163m)

Smartphone penetration: 47% (2012 Q4: 45%, 2012 Q1: 41%)


EE results for the same period in this post
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showt...=#post65527138

Revenue still falling. Slight increase in customers.

Fall in Prepay customers (possibly some converting over to Contracts) and increase in Smartphone user's is following a trend seen across most networks.

[Everything Goes]

Voice traffic decreased 3% year on year in the first quarter.

ARPU trends are similar vs the fourth quarter of 2012 with a 6.4% decline ex-regulation (10.0% year on year reported). Voice ARPU ex regulatory impacts decreased 11.2% year on year while data ARPU was down 1.1% year on year as a consequence of usage optimisation impacting SMS ARPUs.


http://www.telefonica.com/en/shareho...os13t1-eng.pdf

[The Lord Lucan]

No real surprises then.

So EE is making more revenue per customer than O2.

[Everything Goes]

Investor news conference can be listened to here live at 3PM:

http://www.media-server.com/m/p/7kw24vsp

[wavejockglw]

Quote:

Originally Posted by japaul

O2 UK results for January-March 2013:

Smartphone penetration: 47% (2012 Q4: 45%, 2012 Q1: 41%)

Not sure about the above as Mobile Today have stated that:

"This push on what the operator describes as high value customers caused smartphone penetration to hit 53%, up 6% year on year."

[...]"operating income before depreciation and amortisation increased by 3.1% to £287m, which O2 said was due to an increasing customer base and 'strong cost management'."

"A drive on adding contract customers, which saw net adds swell by 251,000 customers, has led to O2 returning to positive profit growth for the first time in over a year."

http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/News/25...it_growth.aspx

Amazing results by a company which some continue to attempt to discredit. Perhaps the lowest 3G coverage presently but all the indicators suggest that customers seem happy with what their being provided with.

[The Lord Lucan]

From Telefonica in regards to UK: "Smartphone penetration increased 6 percentage points year-on-year and reached 47% in the first quarter reflecting the Company’s focus on high value customers."

[el_bardos]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wavejockglw

Not sure about the above as Mobile Today have stated that:

"This push on what the operator describes as high value customers caused smartphone penetration to hit 53%, up 6% year on year."

[...]"operating income before depreciation and amortisation increased by 3.1% to £287m, which O2 said was due to an increasing customer base and 'strong cost management'."

"A drive on adding contract customers, which saw net adds swell by 251,000 customers, has led to O2 returning to positive profit growth for the first time in over a year."

http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/News/25...it_growth.aspx

Amazing results by a company which some continue to attempt to discredit. Perhaps the lowest 3G coverage presently but all the indicators suggest that customers seem happy with what their being provided with.

Either you're willfully misinterpreting or you don't understand the difference between revenue and profit.

If profits are up while revenue is down, they're spending less than they were on maintaining and improving their networks. Or as O2 seem to have put it "strong cost management".
And it wasn't like they were at a winning starting point.

[wavejockglw]

Which ever way you perm it they are doing pretty well considering the very competitive market in the UK. Building customer numbers and increasing smartphone penetration with a healthy increase in contracts confirms their strategy is far from flawed currently.

Compared with others O2's results are very respectable and heading in the right direction which must be very annoying for those who have posted nothing but negativity for years. O2 looks to be more than holding their own in the UK.

[Thine Wonk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wavejockglw

Which ever way you perm it they are doing pretty well considering the very competitive market in the UK. Building customer numbers and increasing smartphone penetration with a healthy increase in contracts confirms their strategy is far from flawed currently.

Compared with others O2's results are very respectable and heading in the right direction which must be very annoying for those who have posted nothing but negativity for years. O2 looks to be more than holding their own in the UK.

When their revenues are declining quarter on quarter despite growing customer numbers, when competitors are growing in revenue and customers then it's clear that their lack of focus on data has bitten them over the last year.

Still only 47% of customers using smartphones, which must be the lowest % in the industry.

Wouldn't they have benefitted from the one off sale of Broadband to Sky? next time they won't see any revenue from that. I wonder if that affects these figures.

[The Lord Lucan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thine Wonk

Wouldn't they have benefitted from the one off sale of Broadband to Sky? next time they won't see any revenue from that. I wonder if that affects these figures.

Totally forgot about that.. All £180m of it.

[moox]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wavejockglw

Which ever way you perm it they are doing pretty well considering the very competitive market in the UK. Building customer numbers and increasing smartphone penetration with a healthy increase in contracts confirms their strategy is far from flawed currently.

Compared with others O2's results are very respectable and heading in the right direction which must be very annoying for those who have posted nothing but negativity for years. O2 looks to be more than holding their own in the UK.

Spending less on their network will only mean a return to past form - near constant outages and ever dwindling 3G/4G coverage while their competitors have rock solid networks that deliver performance expected of them in the 21st century. Even right now their network is not going to win any awards for reliability or coverage.

O2 needs to be investing more, not less.

[japaul]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wavejockglw

Not sure about the above as Mobile Today have stated that:

"This push on what the operator describes as high value customers caused smartphone penetration to hit 53%, up 6% year on year."

[...]"operating income before depreciation and amortisation increased by 3.1% to £287m, which O2 said was due to an increasing customer base and 'strong cost management'."

"A drive on adding contract customers, which saw net adds swell by 251,000 customers, has led to O2 returning to positive profit growth for the first time in over a year."

http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/News/25...it_growth.aspx

Amazing results by a company which some continue to attempt to discredit. Perhaps the lowest 3G coverage presently but all the indicators suggest that customers seem happy with what their being provided with.

Yeah I noticed this report but the smartphone penetration is 47%. I think they've confused it with the proportion of contract customers to the total which is 53%! At least they've got the mobile service revenue figure right where Mobile News have screwed them up which often happens with O2 as they are reported in Euros.
http://www.mobilenewscwp.co.uk/2013/...stomers-in-q1/

This is quite common when non financial journos are let loose on financial reports!

[Thine Wonk]

The smartphone penetration figure is right, it's very similar to other figures I've quoted from elsewhere. It's pretty low due to O2 being a good basic phone network, but not very competitive in the data market in terms of 3G coverage, speeds, allowances.

[japaul]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thine Wonk

Wouldn't they have benefitted from the one off sale of Broadband to Sky? next time they won't see any revenue from that. I wonder if that affects these figures.

No impact (at least not directly) as we are only quoting mobile service revenues, not fixed revenue to keep them comparable with the others (same for the EE figures).

Obviously any total revenue figure which includes fixed lines (and other things like handset sales) will be lower in future without the broadband revenue.

Also the £180m quoted above is the proceeds from the sale of a business, not something which is part of sales revenue figures.

[japaul]

Quote:

Originally Posted by moox

Spending less on their network will only mean a return to past form - near constant outages and ever dwindling 3G/4G coverage while their competitors have rock solid networks that deliver performance expected of them in the 21st century. Even right now their network is not going to win any awards for reliability or coverage.

O2 needs to be investing more, not less.

The figures don't support that at all. Capex (which is commonly quoted when they talk about 'investing in the network') is virtually identical between O2 and EE. The last comparable figures for the 12 months to December 2012 show EE having spent £606m and O2 £607m. Vodafone will also have spent a very similar amount.

[Everything Goes]

Quote:

Originally Posted by japaul

No impact (at least not directly) as we are only quoting mobile service revenues, not fixed revenue to keep them comparable with the others (same for the EE figures).

Obviously any total revenue figure which includes fixed lines (and other things like handset sales) will be lower in future without the broadband revenue.

Also the £180m quoted above is the proceeds from the sale of a business, not something which is part of sales revenue figures.

O2 may not get as much money from the deal as they had hoped for as subscribers keep leaving in increasing numbers.

Quote:

The latest quarterly results from O2 UK (BE Broadband) appear to suggest that the ISPs fixed line home broadband customers have been climbing over themselves to escape the forthcoming migration to Sky Broadband (BSkyB) as subscriber figures fell by a staggering -40,700 in Q1-2013 to total 519,400.

Sky picked up O2′s home broadband and phone customers for £180m in March (here), which was in addition to an extra contingent amount of not more than £20 million that may be payable dependent upon the successful delivery and completion of the customer migration process (this is now becoming more of a challenge).

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php...bscribers.html

[moox]

Quote:

Originally Posted by japaul

The figures don't support that at all. Capex (which is commonly quoted when they talk about 'investing in the network') is virtually identical between O2 and EE. The last comparable figures for the 12 months to December 2012 show EE having spent £606m and O2 £607m. Vodafone will also have spent a very similar amount.

That doesn't really contradict what I said.

3 and EE have a quality 3G network with a half-decent amount of coverage, and EE themselves have an expanding LTE network.

O2 has a patently unreliable network with a mediocre amount of 3G coverage (unless you're in an urban area). Have they upgraded their 3G network to support any modern HSPA revision yet?

O2 would logically need to spend more than EE to catch up to them. Vodafone isn't much better either. If they're spending the same amount as EE they are still going to stay as far behind as they are now.

[Ashley_Bradbury]

Quote:

Originally Posted by moox

That doesn't really contradict what I said.

3 and EE have a quality 3G network with a half-decent amount of coverage, and EE themselves have an expanding LTE network.

O2 has a patently unreliable network with a mediocre amount of 3G coverage (unless you're in an urban area). Have they upgraded their 3G network to support any modern HSPA revision yet?

O2 would logically need to spend more than EE to catch up to them. Vodafone isn't much better either. If they're spending the same amount as EE they are still going to stay as far behind as they are now.

Does the EE figure include 3's contribution to the network?

[Thine Wonk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashley_Bradbury

Does the EE figure include 3's contribution to the network?

No, but then O2's wouldn't include Vodafone.

[The Lord Lucan]

Vodafone & O2 are building a network together as are 3 & EE so it doesn't matter.

However one thing that is worth noting it shouldn't cost O2 or Voda quite as much to build a LTE network as being the first always costs more. It should take slightly less time (which costs less) to build as the infrastructure i.e. fibre etc should already be there already as they have had longer to plan. Cost of LTE equipment has also come down somewhat since EE did deals early/mid last year.

However that said there is still quite a lead factor in EE's roll out and MBNL's upgrades. So in theory they (O2) should still be spending more to catch up.

The figures will be far more blurred when it comes to Voda owns most of the fibre it will be using for LTE but in that it costs to roll that out too, especially when there will only be one operator using it.

So one cannot assume that for X amount you get the same, less or more roll out.

[japaul]

Quote:

Originally Posted by moox

That doesn't really contradict what I said.

3 and EE have a quality 3G network with a half-decent amount of coverage, and EE themselves have an expanding LTE network.

O2 has a patently unreliable network with a mediocre amount of 3G coverage (unless you're in an urban area). Have they upgraded their 3G network to support any modern HSPA revision yet?

O2 would logically need to spend more than EE to catch up to them. Vodafone isn't much better either. If they're spending the same amount as EE they are still going to stay as far behind as they are now.

I don't think anybody would argue that O2's 3G coverage is lower than EE's but the only point I was contradicting was that O2 was investing less than the others which is just factually untrue unless you are arguing with the numbers.

As I said capex last year was pretty much identical but actually if you go back to the start of EE then cumulatively O2 has invested more (about £1.7billion v about £1.5b for EE). Now clearly in terms of the shared bits of the network then 3 will also have spent a bit but capex for a mobile operator is not just about more masts. There are plenty of areas where you need to spend and this can be very lumpy with spending on different areas concentrated at different times. In 2-3 years coverage will most likely be quite similar overall across the networks.

[japaul]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashley_Bradbury

Does the EE figure include 3's contribution to the network?

No and a proportion of 3's own capex will have been on the shared network with EE. In 2012, 3's total capex was £250m (EE: £606m).

[el_bardos]

Quote:

Originally Posted by japaul

I don't think anybody would argue that O2's 3G coverage is lower than EE's but the only point I was contradicting was that O2 was investing less than the others which is just factually untrue unless you are arguing with the numbers.

How are they increasing profit with decreasing revenue if they're not spending less somewhere, though?

What about Opex, that is still in effect an investment in the network (in terms of availability of spares and time to fix faults etc).

[japaul]

Quote:

Originally Posted by el_bardos

How are they increasing profit with decreasing revenue if they're not spending less somewhere, though?

What about Opex, that is still in effect an investment in the network (in terms of availability of spares and time to fix faults etc).

Lower handset subsidies which has the effect of reducing revenue (more move to sim only contracts) but may still be profitable if the subsidy reduction more than offsets this. Also more joint procurement with the rest of Telefonica and apparently benefits being realised from the network share.