Vodafone Reports Slight Recovery

The Vodafone Group reported a 0.4% decline in service revenue on an organic basis for the quarter ending September 30. For the six month period, service revenue fell 0.8% to 18.4 billion euros, as "good underlying momentum was offset by lower revenue from roaming and visitors," Vodafone said. 

Vodafone also reported that its 1-Gigabit capable fixed-line network now passes 52 million homes and it has launched 5G in 127 cities across nine European markets. In Africa, its M-Pesa financial services platform processed almost 13 billion transactions over the past 12 months. Source: Vodafone report

Google Sees Advertising Perk Up

Alphabet reported a 15% year-on-year rise in revenues at constant currency for the third quarter to 46.2 billion US dollars, after reporting flat revenues form the second quarter. Google search and other advertising revenues were 26.3 billion dollars in the quarter, up 6% year-over-year as advertiser spend began to pick up in August. YouTube advertising revenues were 5 billion dollars, up 32% year-on-year, "driven by ongoing substantial growth in direct response, followed by a rebound in brand advertising."

Google Cloud revenues were 3.4 billion dollars for the third quarter, up 45% year-over-year, while "other revenues" were 5.5 billion dollars, up 35% year-over-year, primarily driven by growth in Play and YouTube non-advertising revenues. In its Other Bets division, which includes the self-driving vehicle developer Waymo, revenues in the third quarter were 178 million dollars, while the operating loss was 1.1 billion dollars. Source: Alphabet collateral

Telefónica Takes Another COVID Hit

Dragged down by the pandemic, Telefónica reported a 4.5% year-on-year fall  in revenues to 10.46 billion euros for the third quarter of 2020 on an organic basis.  That compares with a 5.6% decline in the second quarter of 2020.

The Madrid-based group estimated that COVID-19 had a negative impact on group revenue of 591 million euros in the third quarter compared with 729 million euros in the second quarter, as handset sales picked up. It said its operations in Spanish-speaking Latin America accounted for 31% of the total impact, followed by Spain with 26%, the UK at 20% and Brazil at 15%. Germany accounted for just 5%. Source: Telefónica statement.

Chinese 5G Demand Lifts Ericsson

Ericsson reported a 7% year-on-year increase in revenues for the third quarter of 2020 on a like-for-like basis to 57.5 billion Swedish krona (6.6 billion U.S. dollars). The rise was mainly driven by sales of 5G network equipment in mainland China, Ericsson said.  Overall network revenues rose 13% on a like-for-like basis.

The results reflect "high activity levels in North East Asia and North America," said Börje Ekholm, CEO of Ericsson. "Underlying business fundamentals remain strong in North America driven by consolidation in the U.S. operator market, pending spectrum auctions, and increased demand for 5G. The 5G contracts in mainland China have developed according to plan, contributing positively to profits in Q3 and are expected to improve further. Our business in Europe grew based on several footprint gains. While the pandemic has hurt revenues for several of our customers, and in some cases this has led to a reduction of capex, we have not seen any negative impact on our business, largely due to footprint gains. However, the pandemic negatively impacted our sales in Latin America and Africa." source: Ericsson statement

Tesla Sees Another Strong Quarter

 

Tesla reported a 39% year-on-year increase in revenue for the third quarter, thanks to "substantial growth in vehicle deliveries". Providing an update on its self-driving systems, it said: "Our Autopilot team has been focused on a fundamental architectural rewrite of our neural networks and control algorithms. This rewrite will allow the remaining driving features to be released. In October, we sent the first FSD [full-self-driving] software update enabled by the rewrite to a limited number of Early Access Program users City Streets." As it collects data over time, the system will become more robust, Tesla added.  

"It's also important to emphasise that this is a generalised neural net-based approach," Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on the conference call. "There is no need for high-definition maps or a cellphone connection. So the car — the system is designed such that even if you have no connectivity whatsoever and you're in a place that you have never been to before and no Tesla has ever been there, the car should still be able to drive, just like a person. That is the system that we are developing and aiming to release this year."

source: Tesla presentation

Netflix Closes in on 200 Million Members

Netflix forecast that its revenues will rise 20% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2020 to 6.57 billion U.S. dollars, following a rise of almost 23% in the third quarter. The rate of growth is markedly slower than a year earlier - revenues rose by over 30% in the second half of 2019.  Still, by the end of 2020, Netflix expects to be serving more than 200 million paying members. Source: Netflix statement

China Dominates Global 5G Market

Source: Canalys press release

Deutsche Telekom Almost Flat

Excluding the acquisition of Sprint and adjusted for exchange rate effects, Deutsche Telekom reported a 0.1% rise in revenue for the first half of 2020. The group said revenue was flat in the U.S., rose 1% in Germany and was stable elsewhere in Europe. However, revenue in the Systems Solutions division fell 2.1%

As of mid-July, DT's 5G network, with around 30,000 antennas, covered 40 million people across Germany, the group said, adding that T-Mobile US' 5G network now covers over one million square miles, including 7,500 towns and cities, and 250 million people.

DT also said its LTE network now covers over 98% of all households in Germany, "but ensuring full coverage along transportation routes is proving a challenge for all of the network operators." A total of 850 LTE sites have either been built from scratch or upgraded with LTE antennas since the start of 2020, the operator noted. source: Deutsche Telekom statement

IPad Sales Lift Apple

Apple reported a 11% year-on-year rise in revenue for the quarter ending June 27th to 59.7 billion US dollars. Although iPhone sales grew just 2%, services sales were up 15% and iPad sales leapt 31%. Source: Apple statement

Amazon Sees Extraordinary Growth

Amazon reported a 41% year-on-year increase in sales on a constant currency basis to 88.9 billion US dollars for the second quarter.  One year ago the top line was growing at 20%. Sales in North America rose 43%, while sales at Amazon Web Services climbed 29%. 

Amazon said it expects sales in the third quarter to grow between 24% and 33% to between 87 billion and 93 billion dollars, after an unfavourable impact of approximately 20 basis points from foreign exchange rates. source: Amazon statement

Orange Suffers Slight Sales Fall

 

Source: Orange presentation

Bharti Airtel Reports Remarkable Growth

Bharti Airtel reported a 18% year-on-year increase in revenues on an underlying basis for the quarter ending March 31. For the year to March 31, revenues were up almost 11% to 875 billion Indian rupees (11.56 billion US dollars). In India, mobile revenues rose 22% in the quarter led by an increase in the operator's 4G customer base coupled with improved tariffs. Airtel said that mobile ARPU for the quarter was 154 rupees (2.04 dollars) up from 123 rupees a year earlier, underlining that the disruptive price wars in India's telecoms sector are now over. Source: Airtel statements. 

Cash Cushion for U.S. Telcos

For the big four telcos in the U.S., net cash from operating activities has been on an upward march, thanks in part to tax reforms.  The operations of America’s top four telcos generated 101 billion dollars in 2019, up from 73 billion dollars in 2017 (after tax and interest payments). Although the COVID-19 crisis is hitting some revenue streams, such as roaming, these figures suggest the U.S. telecoms industry will weather the storm quite well.

Over the past four years, AT&T’s operations have generated by far the most cash of the four big telcos, consistently over 35 billion dollars each year, while Verizon has bounced back strongly on this metric after a weak 2016 and 2017.

Historically, T-Mobile US, which has just merged with Sprint, has struggled to generate large amounts of cash, primarily because it has used low prices to win market share gains. Still,  T-Mobile US generated almost 7 billion dollars from its operations in 2019, up from less than 4 billion dollars in 2018. In the first quarter of 2020, this metric was up 16% year-on-year to 1.6 billion dollars.

Pringle Media has just published a 50 page report tracking and comparing the key financial metrics of the four big U.S. telcos over the past five years: Screen shots of eight sample pages below.

If you would like to purchase a PDF copy of the report, priced at $100 for a company-wide license, please send an email to pringled@btinternet.com

U.S. Telcos Keep Capex in Check

America’s top four telcos are collectively investing significantly more in property, plant and equipment ($48 billion in 2019) than they were in 2010 ($42 billion). But the aggregate capital intensity (excluding spectrum licenses) of the big four is now hovering around 12.5% - much lower than in Europe where the big telcos invest about 17% of revenues.

Since 2017, the collective capital intensity of the U.S. telcos has been slipping, as AT&T has bet big on the entertainment sector. Verizon is now putting pressure on AT&T by upping its capital spending as it vies for supremacy in 5G.

During the past five years, Sprint (now part of T-Mobile US) has been the clear laggard, investing just $20 billion in capex. Even together, T-Mobile US and Sprint are investing just two-thirds of Verizon's capex budget.

Pringle Media has just published a 50 page report tracking and comparing the key financial metrics of the four big U.S. telcos over the past five years: Screen shots of eight sample pages below.

If you would like to purchase a PDF copy of the report, priced at $100 for a company-wide license, please send an email to pringled@btinternet.com

Germany Steps Up as U.S. Slows Down

Deutsche Telekom reported a 1.1% year-on-year rise in revenue to 19.9 billion euros for the first quarter, excluding the impact of changes in exchange rates. In the U.S., growth slowed to just 0.7% as T-Mobile US saw "declines in terminal equipment revenue as a result of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic." T-Mobile US has just completed a merger with rival Sprint.

In Germany, DT's revenue rose 0.9%, while in the rest of Europe growth was 0.4%. With 83,000 new broadband customers, DT said the first quarter marked its best result in two years in Germany.  It also attracted 60,000 new users to its MagentaTV service.

Still, DT expects the pandemic to have "limited impact on revenue, due to, for example, the closure of shops, lower roaming revenues, and companies postponing or canceling IT projects. On the other hand, voice telephony  revenue is increasing, for instance, and the mobile churn rate is falling." The Group confirmed its guidance for the current financial year.

In the first three months of 2020, DT added 208 new LTE cell sites to its network in Germany, while 534 cell sites have been upgraded with additional LTE antennas. It is aiming to bring 5G to at least 20 of the largest German cities by the end of 2020. DT also said that more than 200 million people in over 5,000 towns, cities, and municipalities across the United States are now reached by T‑Mobile's  5G network. Source: DT statements

Vodafone's Performance Picks Up

Vodafone reported a 1.6% year-on-year rise in service revenue for the quarter ending March 31 on an organic basis. A 0.4% decline in Europe, was more than offset by a 7.9% rise in the rest of the world. The group-wide performance was a marked improvement on the previous three quarters.

The company said: "The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in our markets, whilst uncertain, is likely to be significant. Whilst our business model is more resilient than many others, we are not immune to the challenges. We are experiencing a direct impact on our roaming revenues from lower international travel and we also expect economic pressures to impact our customer revenues over time. However, we are also seeing significant increases in data volumes and further improvements in loyalty, as our customers place greater value on the quality, speed and reliability of our networks." Source: Vodafone statement

With the release of Vodafone's annual results, Pringle Media has been able to update the report on the performance of Europe's big five telcos over the past decade. More here.

Europe's Top Telcos Stage Recovery

Europe's telecoms industry staged something of a recovery in 2019. The collective net cash flow generated by the operating activities of the big five telcos leapt to 69 billion euros up from 59 billion euros in 2018.  Deutsche Telekom led the way, while Telefónica, Orange, Vodafone  and Telecom Italia also saw an upturn in cash generation.

The aggregate operating income, net profit and return on capital employed of the big five also rose, but the industry is likely to remain under financial pressure in 2020 as the COVID-19 crisis hits enterprise revenues and telcos vie for leadership in 5G.

Pringle Media has just published a 60 page report tracking and comparing the key financial metrics of these five major telcos over the past decade: Screen shots of eight sample pages below.

Note, the Vodafone figures for the fourth quarter of 2019 have now been updated, as the company has now reported on that period.

If you would like to purchase a PDF copy of the report, priced at 100 euros for a company-wide license, please send an email to pringled@btinternet.com

Orange Reports Robust Results Despite Crisis

Orange Group reported a 1% year-on-year rise in revenues for the first quarter to 10.4 billion euros on a like-for-like basis. Revenues in Africa and Middle East grew by 6.2%, and in France by 0.5%. Enterprise revenues grew by 0.8% and Europe by 0.3%. Spain revenues declined by 2.4%.

The Paris-based group said: "Based on currently available information, Orange does not expect a significant deviation from its financial objectives for the fiscal year 2020, but will closely monitor developments."

Stéphane Richard, CEO of the Orange Group, added: “The importance of telecoms in this crisis in ensuring the continued functioning of the economy and of our societies confirms the strategic nature of our activities and provides further confirmation for our strategy in very high-speed networks. Our fibre deployment continues to accelerate with close to 40 million households now connectable to the fibre optic network, underpinning our strong commercial performance. In this quarter the number of fibre customers reached 7.8 million, up 20%."  source: Orange statements

Alphabet Sees Advertising Fall Away

Alphabet, the owner of Google, reported a 15% year-on-year increase in first quarter revenues at constant currency to 41.2 billion US dollars. The rise was driven by search-related advertising, YouTube and cloud services, but demand began to fall away towards the end of the quarter as the impact of COVID-19 became apparent.

Google Search and other advertising revenues amounted to 24.5 billion dollars, up 9% year-over-year, for the quarter. "This reflects strong year-on-year growth for the first two months of the quarter," Alphabet said. "In March, revenues began to decline and ended the month at a mid-teens percentage decline in year-on-year revenues."

YouTube advertising revenues were up 33% to 4 billion dollars, while Google Cloud, including GCP and G Suite, reported a 52% rise in revenues to 2.8 billion dollars.  "Other Revenues" were 4.4 billion dollars, up 23% year-over-year, primarily driven by growth in YouTube subscriptions and sales through the Google Play app store. Alphabet said there are now more than 2.5 billion monthly active Play devices worldwide.

Alphabet also said its video conferencing platform Meet is now adding roughly 3 million new users each day, and has seen a thirty fold increase in usage since January. There are now over 100 million daily Meet meeting participants, it added. Source: Alphabet statements

Europe's Telcos Grapple with Capex Conundrum

Although service revenue has been under pressure for most of the past decade, Europe’s big five telcos continue to collectively invest far more in capex (39 billion euros in 2019) than they were in 2010 (34 billion euros). Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, Vodafone, Orange and Telecom Italia are now spending 17% of their aggregate revenues on capex (excluding spectrum license fees), up from 14% in 2010. Although they are now under pressure to deploy 5G, some of the big five are now taking their foot off the pedal (as the graphic shows).

Over the past decade, Deutsche Telekom has been the biggest spender, investing over 100 billion euros in plant, property and equipment. However, Telecom Italia leads in terms of capital intensity: It spent an extraordinary one quarter of its revenues on capex in 2015, 2016 and 2017, before scaling back to 22% in 2018 and 21% in 2019.

Pringle Media has just published a 60 page report tracking and comparing the key financial metrics of these five major telcos over the past decade: Screen shots of eight sample pages below.

Note, some of the Vodafone figures for the fourth quarter of 2019 are estimates, as the company hasn't reported for that period yet.

If you would like to purchase a PDF copy of the report, priced at 100 euros for a company-wide license, please email: pringled@btinternet.com.

Verizon Reports Lockdown Traffic Surge

Verizon reported a 1.6% year-on-year decline in revenue for the first quarter to 31.6 billion US dollars, as wireless equipment revenue fell almost 19% amid the Covid-19 lockdown.

The US telco reported capital expenditures for the quarter of 5.3 billion dollars "to support the capacity for unprecedented traffic growth across Verizon's networks and the deployment of fiber and additional cell sites to support the company's 5G Ultra Wideband rollout." source: Verizon statement

AT&T Takes Big Entertainment Hit

AT&T reported a 4.5% year-on-year fall in revenues to 42.8 billion US dollars for the first quarter of 2020. It said that 600 million of the 2 billion dollars shortfall was due to COVID-19, as sports advertising and wireless equipment sales suffered.

In the telco's communications division, revenues fell 2.6% to 34.2 billion dollars due to declines in the  entertainment group, wireless equipment and business wireline that were partially offset by gains in wireless service revenues. In the first quarter, premium TV subscribers (which includes DirecTV, U-verse and AT&T TV subscribers) fell by 897,000 "due to competition and customers rolling off promotional discounts as well as lower gross adds from the continued focus on adding higher-value customers." The video-on-demand service AT&T TV NOW saw a net loss of 138,000 subscribers due to higher prices and less promotional activity. AT&T is planning to launch HBO Max at the end of May.

In the Warner Media division, revenue was down 12.2% to 7.4 billion dollars, while revenues from Latin America fell 7.5% to 1.6 billion dollars as foreign exchange pressures more than offset growth in Mexico. Source: AT&T statement

Netflix Pauses Most of its Productions

Netflix reported a 28% year-on-year rise in revenues for the first quarter to 5.77 billion U.S. dollars, as the number of paying subscribers rose 23% to almost 183 million. It forecast that revenue will grow 23% in the current quarter.

"Like other home entertainment services, we’re seeing temporarily higher viewing and increased membership growth," Netflix said. "In our case, this is offset by a sharply stronger US dollar, depressing our international revenue, resulting in revenue-as-forecast. We expect viewing to decline and membership growth to decelerate as home confinement ends, which we hope is soon."

Netflix said it has paused most of its productions across the world in response to government lockdowns and guidance from local public health officials. "No one knows how long it will be until we can safely restart physical production in various countries, and, once we can, what international travel will be possible, and how negotiations for various resources (e.g., talent, stages, and post-production) will play out," it added.  Source: Netflix statement

North America Bolsters Ericsson

Ericsson reported a 2% year-on-year decline in sales on a comparable basis for the first quarter to 49.8 billion Swedish krona (4.94 billion US dollars).

"Underlying business fundamentals remain strong," said Börje Ekholm, Ericsson CEO. "With growth in data in general and with working from home as the new normal in many countries, good connectivity is more important than ever. For 2020, we estimate the RAN (radio access network) market to grow by 4%, however, for Q2 we expect somewhat lower than normal sequential sales growth, as there are uncertainties impacting short-term growth negatively. ...while we have seen no material effects so far on our demand situation, it is prudent to believe that the slowdown in the general economy may lead some operators to delay investment programmes." Source: Ericsson statement.

China Mobile Claims 32 Million 5G Customers

China Mobile reported its 5G customer base doubled in March. Source: China Mobile stats

The Broadband Decade: Who Won?

Pringle Media has just published a 60 page report tracking and comparing the key financial metrics of Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, Telecom Italia and Vodafone over the past decade: Screen shots of eight sample pages below.

If you would like to purchase a PDF copy of the report, priced at 100 euros for a company-wide license, please send an email to pringled@btinternet.com

IDC: Telecoms Spending to be Flat in 2020

Spending on telecommunication services (including pay TV) will reach 1.6 trillion U.S. dollars in 2020, similar to the level in 2019, according to IDC.  That represents a slight downgrade on its November 2019 forecast. At that time, the research firm anticipated that spending on telecom and pay TV services would reach 1.65 trillion dollars in 2020, up from 1.63 trillion in 2019.

Although the Covid-19 pandemic has increased home usage of telecom services, IDC warned this doesn't directly translate into a surge in telecom spending as many households have unlimited voice calls and unlimited Internet services. "COVID-19 is leading to a lot of uncertainty around the spending impact on various technology markets. We expect the telecom services market to weather the current conditions better than other elements of the ICT market," said Carrie MacGillivray of IDC. Source: IDC statement

Samsung Sees Sales Rising

Samsung Electronics expects to report sales of about 55 trillion Korean won (45.4 billion US dollars) for the first quarter of 2020. That would represent a year-on-year rise of 5%. It also expects to report a 3% rise in operating profit to 6.4 trillion won. source: Samsung statement

Messaging and Calls Soar For Facebook

Facebook reported that total messaging on its services has increased more than 50% over the past month in Italy and other countries hit hardest by Covid-19. Moreover, in some places, voice and video calling have more than doubled on Messenger and WhatsApp, Facebook said. "The usage growth from Covid-19 is unprecedented across the industry, and we are experiencing new records in usage almost every day."

However, the company added:  "We don’t monetise many of the services where we’re seeing increased engagement, and we’ve seen a weakening in our ads business in countries taking aggressive actions to reduce the spread of Covid-19." Source: Facebook statement

Deutsche Telekom Forecasts Growth Ahead

Deutsche Telekom reported a 2.8% increase in revenues in 2019 on a like-for-like basis to 80.5 billion euros.  T-Mobile USA lifted revenues 5% in dollar terms. Anticipating further growth in the U.S., the group forecast an increase in revenues in 2020, followed by a "slight increase in 2021". source: Deutsche Telekom statement

Postpaid Mobile Lifts América Móvil

América Móvil reported a 3.2% year-on-year increase in service revenues, at constant exchange rates, for the fourth quarter of 2019 to 209 billion Mexican pesos (11.25 billion U.S. dollars). The growth figure excludes Argentina, which is subject to inflation-adjusted accounting. The operator said its mobile revenues rose 5.7%, lifted by a 15.6% increase in Brazil where it is gaining market share. Source: América Móvil statement

Orange Buoyed By Cloud and Security

Orange reported a 1.1% year-on-year rise in revenues for the fourth quarter of 2019 on a comparable basis to 11.1 billion euros. Across 2019, revenue rose 0.6% boosted by "very strong momentum in Africa and the Middle East", a "solid performance in Europe and the return of growth in enterprise."  Orange said these factors "more than compensated for a very slight decline in France of 0.3% and a decline in Spain of 1.5% in 2019 due to that market's shift towards low cost."

Orange also reported that IT and systems integration activities' share of enterprise revenues climbed two percentage points to reach 37.2% in 2019.  "This increase reflects the performance of cloud and cybersecurity services, where Orange has become a European leader thanks to the acquisitions of SecureData and SecureLink," the operator said.

At the end of 2019, Orange Bank had over 500,000 customers, including 390,000 account holders in France. It has also been launched in Spain. Meanwhile, the video-on-demand service OCS Go now has 3.1 million customers. source: Orange collateral

Vodafone Meets Demand for Unlimited Data

Vodafone reported a 6.8% year-on-year rise in group revenue for the quarter ending December 31 to 11.75 billion euros. However, on an organic basis, service revenue rose just 0.8%, as growth in Africa was offset by declines in Europe.

Vodafone said it is now offering "new speed-tiered unlimited mobile data plans"  in the seven markets where it has launched 5G. "We reached an unlimited consumer customer base of 3 million SIMs" at the end of the quarter, Vodafone reported, adding: "Reflecting the success of our unlimited plans, data volumes on our mobile networks continued to grow strongly in Europe in [the quarter], rising by 45%. Average smartphone usage for our overall customer base increased to 4.5 GB/month (+1.2 GB year-on-year)."

Vodafone also said its new agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to deploy AWS Wavelength solutions at the edge of Vodafone's 5G networks, will deliver a 5-10 times reduction in latency. "The new services will help support artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, video analytics, autonomous vehicles, robotics and drone control, and will generate incremental revenues for the Group," it added. source: Vodafone statement

Alphabet Talks Up YouTube and Cloud

Alphabet, the owner of Google, reported a 19% year-on-year increase in revenues to 46.1 billion U.S. dollars for the fourth quarter on a constant currency basis. "At our scale, we are pleased with our rate of growth for 2019 and see ample opportunity going forward,' said Ruth Porat, CFO. "With respect to YouTube advertising, at a year-on-year growth rate of more than 30% in the fourth quarter, we're pleased with the ongoing strength and opportunity at YouTube. We see substantial continuing opportunity in direct response as well as with brand advertisers... the non-advertising services at YouTube, mainly from subscriptions, reached a 3 billion dollars revenue run rate in the fourth quarter."

Alphabet said that Waymo's (self-driving) cars have driven 20 million miles across more than 25 U.S. cities. "Waymo is now serving over 1,500 monthly active riders in Metro Phoenix and continues scaling fully driverless by matching early riders with driverless vehicles and charging for these rides. As Waymo looks to its evolution as a business, it's focusing on strategic partnerships. For example, it's working closely with OEMs and other businesses to build out ride hailing and delivery business lines."

Alphabet also reported that it added as many buildings to Google Maps using machine learning in 2019 as it had using all other techniques in the previous decade. "The Google Assistant now helps more than 500 million monthly users across 90 countries get things done across smart speakers and smart displays, phones, TVs, cars and more," Porat added. "I'm proud to announce that over 80 billion dollars has been earned by developers around the world from Google Play showing the popularity of our platform. There are now over 2 billion active monthly users of Google Play." Source: Alphabet investor documentation

Amazon Saw Slight Slowdown in Fourth Quarter

Amazon reported a 21% year-on-year increase in sales for the fourth quarter of 2019 to 87.4 billion U.S. dollars. For the full year, net sales increased 22% on a constant currency basis to 280.5 billion dollars. Growth at its cloud arm, AWS, slowed to 34% in the fourth quarter, compared with 37% for the whole of 2019.

“More people joined Prime this quarter than ever before, and we now have over 150 million paid Prime members around the world,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO. "The number of items delivered to U.S. customers with Prime’s free one-day and same-day delivery more than quadrupled this quarter compared to last year... Prime members watched double the hours of original movies and TV shows on Prime Video this quarter compared to last year.” source: Amazon statement

Tesla Says Revenue Growth Will Accelerate

Tesla reported a 2% year-on-year rise in revenues for the fourth quarter to 7.38 US dollars,  as deliveries of its Model 3 car leapt 46% to 92,620. Tesla said: "Revenue growth was offset by higher lease mix, Model 3 becoming a larger part of our mix, introduction of the Standard Range trims of Model 3, and adjustments to vehicle pricing. These changes have resulted in a reduction to the average selling price (ASP) relative to 2018. We do not expect ASP to change significantly in the near term, which means volume growth and revenue growth should correlate more closely this year."

"We are positioned to accelerate our revenue growth further through increasing build rates in Gigafactory Shanghai and our Model Y production line in Fremont. These production increases will allow for higher total vehicle deliveries and associated revenue."

Tesla said its customers vehicles have now driven over three billion miles in "Autopilot mode", adding more data to the neural net it is using to develop self-driving capabilities. "All Tesla vehicles with our FSD computer have been updated with new software that can better detect new details in their environments, allowing us to show various lane markings, traffic lights, stop signs, cones as well as other vehicles and road users. Understanding the environment around a Tesla is key to enabling our cars to react to traffic lights and stop signs and take intersections through city streets. We are currently validating this functionality before releasing to customers, and we look forward to its gradual deployment."

In the fourth quarter, Tesla launched premium vehicle connectivity in the US for 10 dollars (plus tax) per month, which customers can use to stream music or videos, browse the Internet or see live traffic through an embedded connection. Source: Tesla statement

Apple Flags Strong Growth Ahead

Apple forecast it will generate revenue of between 63 billion and 67 billion US dollars for the quarter ending March 30th, compared with 58 billion dollars in the same quarter of last year. That would represent year-on-year growth of between 9% and 16%.

For the quarter ending December 28, 2019, Apple posted quarterly revenue of 91.8 billion US dollars, an increase of 9% from the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 61% of the quarter’s revenue. Revenue from iPhones rose 8%, while revenue from wearables, home and accessories climbed 37%.

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said: “During the holiday quarter our active installed base of devices grew in each of our geographic segments and has now reached over 1.5 billion." Source: Apple statement

Ericsson Claims 5G Leadership

Ericsson reported a 1% year-on-year rise in revenues on a like-for-like basis for the fourth quarter of 2019 to 66.4 billion Swedish krona (6.9 billion US dollars). The telecoms equipment maker said a fall in sales in North America was compensated for by growth in other markets, primarily in the Middle East and North East Asia.

Börje Ekholm, CEO of Ericsson, said: "We have regained technology leadership, recovered previously lost ground in several markets... we are a leader in 5G with 78 commercial 5G agreements with unique operators and 24 live 5G networks on four continents. .... Due to the uncertainty related to an announced operator merger, we saw a slowdown in our North American business in the fourth quarter, resulting in North America having the lowest share of total sales for some time. However, the underlying business fundamentals in North America remain strong. .. It is still too early to assess possible volumes and price levels for the expected deployment of 5G in China, and we expect that the initial challenging margins will shift to positive margins over the lifespan of the contracts." source: Ericsson statement

Netflix Fends Off New Competition

Netflix forecast year-on-year revenue growth of almost 27% for the first quarter of 2020, after raising revenues by almost 31% in the final quarter of 2019 to 5.47 billion US dollars. It added 8.8 million paying subscribers in the quarter, approximately the same figure as a year earlier.

Netflix said: "We generated Q4-record paid net adds in each of the EMEA, LATAM and APAC regions, while UCAN (United States and Canada) paid net adds totalled 550,000 (with 420,000 in the U.S.) versus 1.75 million in the year ago quarter. Our low membership growth in UCAN is probably due to our recent price changes and to U.S. competitive launches. We have seen more muted impact from competitive launches outside the U.S.." source: Netflix statement

Tesla Steps Up Production and Deliveries

Tesla reported record production of almost 105,000 vehicles and record deliveries of approximately 112,000 vehicles for the fourth quarter of 2019. Across the full year, it delivered approximately 367,500 vehicles, 50% more than in 2018.

The new Model 3 accounted for 83% of the vehicles it produced. Tesla also said its new Shanghai factory, which broke ground less than a year ago, has already produced almost "1,000 customer salable cars." Source: Tesla statement