AT&T and Verizon reported surprising growth in post-paid phone gross additions and an increase in churn this week, stoking some concerns that competition in the wireless market is picking up. Upgrade rates and smartphone sales are also on the rise at AT&T, a possible early indication that the multi-year lengthening of the smartphone replacement cycle…
Wireless Cash EBITDA was $126 million (1.7%) worse than expected on higher phone upgrade rates and gross additions. Some good news for Apple: AT&T Post-paid device upgrade rate rises to 4.2% from 3.9% and versus our 4.0% estimate. Plus, strong upside to post-paid gross additions. This resulted in 11% increase in smartphones sold to 7.1…
Better than expected post-paid ARPU, subscriber growth, and low phone upgrade rates deliver EBITDA upside. Wireless service revenue increased for the second consecutive quarter after 14 quarters of declines.
Tower leasing revenue growth accelerated for the fourth consecutive quarter to 21.2% and beat our 18.0% estimate likely based on higher escalators. Average Rent increased by 9.0% y/y to MXN 21,638 vs our +5.7% y/y estimate, again likely based on escalators tied to inflation.
New leasing activity for fiber/small cells was generally in-line, increasing by 86% y/y in Q3 (2nd derivative growth). Organic growth accelerated for the second consecutive quarter. New leasing activity on macro towers was slightly higher than expected at 4.15% growth. Second derivative growth was 56%.
Adjusted EBITDA of MXN 69.5 billion was MXN 2.1 billion below our estimate and consensus. The EBITDA misses were in all countries except Argentina, Central America/Caribbean, and Austria primarily because of lower margins. Capex of $1.8 billion was $550 million lower than expected. It will take $3.2 billion of spending in Q4 to hit its…
We are raising our Activision Blizzard PT to $88 from $80, based on 26x the average of our 2019 and 2020 EPS estimates of $3.20 and $3.60. We are using a blended EPS due to our uncertainty regarding the timing of key ATVI releases, especially from Blizzard. When we initiated on the video game publishers last December…
Ahead of tonight’s Q3 2018 Netflix Earnings Interview, we wanted to lay out our top eight questions/issues we have for management (for a look at our key questions heading into Q2 2018, see our July 16, 2018 blog, link). 1) Should Content Creators Compete with Netflix or Sell Them Content? In yesterday’s Media WarGames blog (link), we profiled how Disney…
Last week, we hosted a roundtable discussion on how brands engage consumers in 2018 and beyond, in partnership with Betaworks Studios in NYC. Panelists included five marketing thought leaders (as shown L-R in the picture from the event embedded to the right): Joanna Lord, CMO, Classpass Pam El, CMO, NBA Emily Culp, Former CMO, Keds Linda Boff,…
WOPR is the computer system in the 1983 classic movie, WarGames, which stood for “War Operation Plan Response.” In today’s media landscape, the war is for consumer time, attention and wallet-share. While legacy media remains dominant in terms of size, scale and revenues/profits, they feel increasingly threatened by the rise of SVOD platforms, most notably Netflix. …
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