Topics

901

3G / HSPA / EVDO / Vodafone 2nd Largest 3G Network

« on: November 14, 2014, 01:43:27 PM »

This is Vodafone?s key project to improve data experience across all its markets. For India, Vodafone intends to spend around GBP1.8bn which would give them 90% population coverage in urban centres. We note that at the end of quarter, Vodafone had 28K 3G sites compared to 38K for Bharti and 25K for Idea respectively.

Vodafone Voice usage has grown 6.6% YoY, inline with current trends. Vodafone indicated modest competitive pressure on voice tariffs which is a break from recent trends.

Vodafone believes that the upcoming auction could remain spectrum constrained. However, management indicated that the government is taking a more holistic view of the telecom sector and treating it as an enabler for growth rather than a cash cow.

902

Web 2.0 / Which Google Search Result Page Ads Have Highest Click Through ?

« on: November 11, 2014, 02:06:08 PM »

Digital marketers and webmasters have spent years attempting to optimize their websites and search marketing campaigns for Google?s quality score and ranking algorithms and for maximizing their ROI. However, the rapid shift in Internet usage from desktop to mobile devices is impacting this delicate ecosystem. Driven in part by the physical differences between desktop (large screen), tablets (medium
screen), and smartphones (small screen), advertisers are having to adjust.



Figure above highlights the impact of ad position on CTRs (clickthrough rates) for mobile, tablet, and desktop. In mobile, the first position for advertising has become increasingly important for advertisers given its prominence on the small screen. According to the data, this first position receives the strongest CTRs and the highest share of clicks across any platform. Mobile also performs well in Position 2 & 3 (although with the steepest drop-off), but at lower positions desktop outperforms, presumably due to the easier maneuverability that comes with a larger screen.

903

Technology / India Data Center Capacity

« on: November 10, 2014, 11:08:00 AM »

India Data Center Capacity -  includes cloud services, colocation and data center services, content delivery networks which can efficiently deliver large videos and enable live streaming, unified communications which provide integrated voice, and data and video services through the same medium.

Here is how Various Telecom Service Providers stack up against each other in the Data Center. This excludes Government Run NIC Data Centers used exclusively to host Government Data.

904

FTTH Broadband / India's International Bandwidth Connectivity

« on: November 10, 2014, 11:04:44 AM »

How are Indian Telecom Companies Connected to the Rest of the World in International Bandwidth - Undersea cables landing in India

905

3G / HSPA / EVDO / Loop Deal Cancellation Impact on Airtel

« on: November 09, 2014, 01:32:46 PM »

Loop Mobile, and Airtel have called off a Rs7bn deal which envisaged transfer of Loop's some assets and principally its subscriber base to Airtel. Loop is an incumbent mobile operator in Mumbai and its 20-yr license expired in Oct/14.

Mumbai is 6.3% of the Indian telecom market of $27bn. The revenue share are Vodafone (36%), Bharti (22%), Loop (5%). When the deal was signed, Loop had around 3m subscribers (9.5% marketshare) in Mumbai Since Loop is the incumbent operator, the subscriber base have higher-than- average ARPU. Bharti has 4.5m subscriber base in Mumbai and an inclusion of Loop?s base would have helped it to close the gap with Vodafone.

Airtel Spectrum in Mumbai
Airtel acquired 5Mhz of spectrum in the 900Mhz band in the Feb/14 auction. In addition, it has around 9.8Mhz of spectrum in 1800Mhz band and 5Mhz of spectrum in 3G (2300Mhz band).

906

Web 2.0 / Is Facebook Advertising Better than Google's ?

« on: November 07, 2014, 03:43:51 PM »

Facebook recently relaunched its Atlas adTech platform, closed on its LiveRail acquisition and rolled out Audience Network. Facebook will continue to invest in AdTech to help advertisers reach the right audience.

How is Facebook's Ad Targeting Better than Google's ?
Facebook's age and gender targeting is 45% more accurate than the digital industry average according to the company. For example, Metlife, using Facebook's look-alike audience feature, was able to sell new policies at 2.4x higher rate than MetLife's next best performing channel and at 50% of the cost of the display ads.

907

Web 2.0 / Facebook's Short - Medium Term Strategy ?

« on: November 07, 2014, 03:42:42 PM »

The Management of Facebook provided strategic priorities for the next 3, 5 and 10 years with WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Video and Search falling in the short-to-mid-term focus, while scaling Oculus is longer term. For the next 3 years, FB will 1) grow its communities, 2) connect people to content, including video, and 3) create more value for marketers. Facebook will continue to invest aggressively in FY15 to capture near and longer term opportunities. (non- GAAP opex expected to increase ~60% at mdpt vs. FY14)

908

4G / LTE / Low-cost 4G Smartphone of China Mobile

« on: November 07, 2014, 03:16:28 PM »

Here is the List of Low-cost 4G Smartphone Model Comparison of China Mobile which support the TD-LTE technology like that of Reliance Jio Infocomm but albeit in different mode 2600MHz Band.

909

Technology / What is SalesForce.com Strategy ?

« on: November 07, 2014, 12:17:38 PM »

Since most customers are using just basic Salesforce automation, and many times just in some departments, we see strong expansion opportunities.

Sales in the Americas have hovered around 70% for some time as the company is very selective on entering new markets. New CFO
Hawkins coming from internationally-heavy ADSK should be a good fit for this.

We expect Salesforce.com to continue to post market share gains as it takes share from point solutions and continues to benefit from the move of on-premise to the cloud (59% CRM systems still onpremise).

910

3G / HSPA / EVDO / 900MHz Spectrum Auction Good for Bharti infratel

« on: October 30, 2014, 04:26:50 PM »

TRAI's suggestions on 900MHz renewal auctions point to likely fragmentation of 900MHz holdings because of a supply squeeze. This
may force operators to increase their BTS count in many circles, which is a significant positive for Bharti Infratel. The company mentioned that in the event 900MHz holders are forced to scale down to sub-4MHz after the next auctions, BTS count could increase by 30-40%, since 900MHz would lose its utility as coverage spectrum and more 1800 sites would be needed to achieve similar coverage levels.

911

4G / LTE / Reliance Jio Leasing Towers from Bharti Infratel

« on: October 30, 2014, 04:25:28 PM »

Bharti Infratel mentioned that Reliance Jio Infocomm had taken a few towers from BHIN as it conducts trials and that all this has been in the 2300MHz band. Media reports mention that DoT has allotted most of the 1800MHz won in Feb 2014 on October 27 . BHIN stated that it could get any of its existing sites ready for Jio in three weeks and new towers could be commissioned within 90 days. Hence, most of the Jio-related tenancy increase would come close to Jio's launch date.

912

SmartPhones & Apps / LINE From Messaging App to Mobile Gaming

« on: October 27, 2014, 10:46:17 AM »

Recently, LINE announced plans to diversify its mobile game offerings via a series of strategic partnerships with talented game developers in Japan. Given LINE?s large casual gamer base, we believe it will need more time and have to exert more effort to attract premium mobile gamers who typically generate high ARPU, strong loyalty, and longer paying cycles. LINE needs to find the optimal mix of game offerings for both premium and casual gamers to avoid over-monetisation risks

LINE's online-ad sales will show modest growth until the company finds some powerful mobile-ad products, rather than the typical
search and display ad formats

913

SmartPhones & Apps / Qunar Top Low End Hotel App

« on: October 27, 2014, 08:38:24 AM »

Qunar recently further expanded its hotel coverage to lower end hotels in China; including inns, hostels, apartments, etc. Prices in this range of accommodation run as low as RMB20/bed/night or even less. Qunar mainly offers these low-end hotels through group-buy, cash rebate, direct sales and flash sales. The average daily booking volume of Qunar's Low-end hotel segment during the Golden Week was some 73% higher than the volume in the prior week. Unique Visitors (UV's) were some 40% higher, and conversion ratio was ~25% higher, according to survey data from ctcnn.com.

Qunar remains #1, with a total of 6 apps and cumulative downloads of 166m (+13% MoM) as of Sep 2014. Ctrip came in #2 with total 4 apps and total downloads of 164m (+20% MoM). Tong Cheng, ranked #5, is ramping quickly with 37% MoM growth for total downloads of 113m.

914

3G / HSPA / EVDO / Require 5MHz Spectrum for Mobile Broadband - Idea

« on: October 27, 2014, 08:35:48 AM »

Idea Cellular suggested that an operator will need at least 4/4.5 MHz of spectrum in the 900 MHz spectrum band for GSM/2G services and 5 MHz for mobile broadband services .This implies that the only way both data spectrum and voice spectrum demand can be met is by increasing spectrum supply, which looks difficult to achieve in the short term, in our view.

Idea faces renewal in nine service areas, accounting for 72% of its revenue, and the company has no backup 1800 MHz spectrum in two service areas. We highlight that data growth is picking up and incumbent operators will need to add more data spectrum in their key markets. Given the demand for data spectrum, there is a good possibility that the upcoming auctions may see aggressive bidding. While we see a low possibility of Idea losing spectrum in key markets, the possibility of disruptive pricing cannot be ruled out.

17% of Idea's subscribers have a 3G handset, of which only 43% have taken up a 3G data connection. This latter ratio has stayed
largely stable for the last few quarters.

How Much RMS Required for an Operator to Turn Profitable ?
According to Idea's management explained that for the new circles to turn profitable, a threshold revenue market share of 8% has to be
reached.

915

Web 2.0 / eCommerce Wars - Blessing for Print Media

« on: October 24, 2014, 09:28:47 PM »

In our view, Indian ecommerce companies flush with cash from fresh rounds of funding are splurging on marketing like never before. While the online medium has long been considered a nemesis of the print medium, we think the explosive growth in the Indian e-commerce space implies it could add 100-200bps of ad growth for print names liek Hindustan Times, Dainik Bhaskar and other National Dailies.

In the ecommerce segment, the high competition and ample cash at the disposal of the e-commerce companies should provide further impetus to ad growth.