Strategy Analytics has been designing and analysing large scale consumer surveys for many years. Some of this work has been used by our industry analysts to support their regular market and competition tracking. We have also conducted frequent consumer surveys to support proprietary project and consulting activities.

Recognising that every client has its own particular set of interests, questions and perspectives, we have now opened up some of the results of these surveys to our client base via a powerful new web-based interface and analysis tool. The ConsumerMetrix service collates the results of three years’ worth of survey results, comprising more than 15000 online consumer interviews and offering millions of unique datapoints. Survey results are easily selected and instantly available according to the needs of the individual user, and can be downloaded in Excel and Powerpoint format for incorporation into customers’ own reports.

ConsumerMetrix surveys cover the US, France, Germany, Italy and the UK. Additional international market coverage, including Canada, Spain, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, the Nordic region, Poland, Hungary, Brazil, Mexico and Indonesia, is available at the request of subscribers.

Subscribers can use ConsumerMetrix to assess survey data about the world’s leading technology and service provider brands and who their current and potential customers are.

ConsumerMetrix: Major Technology Brands

Acer, Apple, Asus, Compaq, Dell, Emachines, Facebook, Gateway, Grundig, HP, HTC, JVC, LG, LinkedIn, Motorola, MySpace, Nokia, Packard Bell, Panasonic, Philips, RIM/Blackberry, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Sony, SonyEricsson, Toshiba, Twitter, Vizio, Youtube

ConsumerMetrix: Major Service Provider Brands

3, AT&T/Bell South/Cingular, Bouyges Telecom, BT, Comcast, DirecTV, Dish, E-Plus, Free, Kabel Deutschland, Mediaset PremiumNeuf Cegetel, O2, Orange, SFR, Sky, Sprint/Nextel, TalkTalk, Telecom Italia, T-Home, TIM, Time Warner Cable, T-Mobile, United Internet, Verizon/Alltel, Virgin Media, Virgin Mobile, Vodafone/Arcor, WIND

 

ConsumerMetrix is designed to answer key tactical, consumer-facing questions like:

·         How many people plan to buy an Xbox 360 or PS3 during the next 12 months?

·         How do nations vary in usage of digital video recorders?

·         How do the profiles of Samsung and Sony customers compare?

·         Which television service providers have the highest satisfaction ratings?

·         Which brands are people most likely to choose when they next purchase a TV, PC or mobile phone?

·         How do the demographics of Apple v. PC owners compare?

·         How many people are using the major OTT video services and which devices are they watching them on?

·         How much do consumers expect to pay for iPads or other tablets?

·         How useful do consumers find TV mobile phone apps?

·         Which consumers are using multiscreen TV?

·         How many Sky Digital customers plan to drop the service during the coming 12 months?

 

ConsumerMetrix covers a wide range of themes and technologies related to the digital consumer, television, video and media sectors. The outline is presented below:

 

ConsumerMetrix Survey Themes

ConsumerMetrix Product Segmentation

•          Attitudes to payment and finance •          Household device ownership •          Personal device usage •          Device purchase intentions •          Device price expectations •          Brand ownership •          Brand purchase intentions and preferences •          Service provider customers •          TV, Fixed Broadband, Mobile Broadband, Mobile phone, Home phone •          Broadband and television access technologies •          Television service fees and satisfaction •          Managed home services •          3D television and video •          Advanced television services and features: availability, usage, perceived value and interest •          Television service: propensity to churn •          Future television concepts •          Online television and video services and applications •          Connected video device usage •          Social networking users and brands

•          Consumer Devices: Connected TV, HDTV, 3DTV, LCD/plasma TV, Blu-ray, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PS Vita, Home cinema, Home computer (desktop, portable, PC, Mac), Handheld games (PSP, Nintendo), Digital TV set-top box, Apple TV, Connected TV boxes, mobile phone, iPhone, smartphone, iPad, tablet, broadband WiFi router, Internet radio, camcorder, e-reader, home monitoring camera, iPod, personal audio player •          Broadband/TV Access Technologies: Cable, xDSL, Fiber, WiMax, Mobile data card/dongle, satellite, terrestrial broadcast, IPTV •          Advanced TV Features (selected examples): VOD, Pause/rewind live TV, Series recording, Mobile phone app, caller ID, whole home DVR, internet access •          Online TV device usage: TV/PC, TV/console, TV/media server, TV/Blu-ray, TV/digital media player, Connected TV, PC, Tablet, Smartphone

 

We are excited by the strong interest already shown in this service, which we believe is unique in many respects. Please email digitalconsumer@strategyanalytics.com for further details and a personal demonstration.

David Mercer

We don’t do this very often folks, but as a seasonal gift we have made our 2011 Digital Home Predictions report available to everyone, whether a Strategy Analytics client or not. You can download the full report here. A lot of the talk at the moment is about Google’s troubles with its TV offer: there will be little to see at CES after all, much to the annoyance of Google’s many partners no doubt. But this setback should not be seen as a a sign of general malaise in the connected TV industry: Apple has just reported that its TV solution is finally gaining some traction, and we expect continued progress from other key players in the rollout of internet TV to the big screen during 2011. We may even see Facebook moving into this space. Headline number of the year will be tablet revenues, which we predict will exceed netbooks. We also think Apple needs to revamp iTunes to take account of the connected device era, and Nintendo may have to take the plunge and launch the successor to the Wii. We’ll see further innovations in the TV control arena, with touchscreens, phone apps and motion control all featuring more widely. But 3DTV is likely to see only slow progress: sure, people will be buying 3D-enabled sets, but less than 20% will be watching 3D content on them. And one more stat to whet your appetite: more than one billion people worldwide will be using social networks for the first time during 2011. And since you are one of them, please go ahead and read the full report, and any comments and feedback are always appreciated. Best wishes for a peaceful holiday season. David Mercer Client Reading: Profiling the Connected Media Consumer - UK

At 4.30 yesterday afternoon I wished Anthony Rose well for 2011. He agree it was going to be an exciting time, as YouView moves into the launch phase, and gave no indication that within a few hours he would be stepping down from his high profile CTO role. Rose had just given another presentation on the progress of YouView, the broadband TV joint venture "spearheaded" by the BBC. As YouView's figurehead Rose, in a short time, had become a star attraction on the conference circuit, and I dare say a fair proportion of the packed audience (by no means just from the UK) at Informa's OTT TV World Forum were there primarily to listen to his latest update on the project's progress. In a one-to-one discussion after the panel, I had been asking Rose about the potential compatibility between the YouView system and hbbtv, the broadband TV standard being deployed in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. I'll bring more on this subject at another time, together with the views of hbbtv itself. During the Q&A one or two people noted the challenges of getting YouView to publish its guidance documents in a timely fashion. One questioner noted that he had learnt more about YouView in ten minutes of listening to Anthony than from reading hundreds of pages of documentation. Rose admitted that keeping the project on schedule, as well as meeting the information demands of multiple external stakeholders, had proved challenging. Today's news stories are suggesting that Rose was not considered capable of managing YouView as it moves towards the commercial deployment phase. He will stay on in "an advisory role", but this hardly smacks of a vote of confidence. Advice is one thing: the responsibility for taking decisions will clearly rest on new shoulders. YouView is inevitably putting a gloss on the development, which will come as a shock to many in the IPTV industry. Management turmoil is rarely a good thing, so if YouView is to meet its ambitious mid-2011 launch target it needs to rally the troops and have its new managers get the word out that they understand and can meet the challenges ahead, without losing the vision which Anthony brought to the project. Many YouView doubters remain; the battle with Sky and Virgin rumbles on, and a lot more water will flow under the bridge before the next phase in television's evolution becomes a commercial reality. Client Reading: Profiling the Connected Media Consumer - UK

Lack of ambition would presumably not be the most obvious failing of a new company which styles itself under the label “Everything Everywhere” (EE for sake of brevity). The name was chosen to represent the combined UK operations of both Orange (France Telecom) and T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom), which now form a 50-50 joint venture and which announced their first results at an investors meeting in London yesterday. It would be a tad unfair, given the company’s core network technology assets, to assume that EE would be branching out into home pizza delivery any time soon, even though casual observers might assume “everything everywhere” might encompass all manner of exciting goods and services. Nevertheless, it was perhaps a little disappointing to discover from EE’s tagline – “Creating a new mobile champion” - that the network will apparently only serve network-based communications and applications to customers who happen to be moving around at any given time. Taglines are tough to get right, of course, and inevitably cannot please everyone. As the management presentations progressed, it became clear that mobility was not after all an absolute requirement for any future products and services which EE may choose to emphasise. Indeed, although they remain well hidden beneath the inevitable deluge of mobile phone and wireless network-centric commentary, fixed broadband and IPTV (for big screens) are very much alive and kicking as key elements in EE’s strategy. Executives even went as far as to designate IPTV as a “key part of a converged play” and that fixed broadband was “strategically hugely important”. This should come as a relief, perhaps even a surprise, given that fixed networks have played no part in T-Mobile’s UK business to date, and have been losing money (£80m in 2009) from the few customers Orange alone had managed to acquire. Given this performance the new venture might have been forgiven for abandoning fixed network businesses altogether as a lost cause. Instead we were assured that Orange’s broadband profitability was “already improving”, and that the recently announced deal to outsource network, IT and customer service to BT will have the desired impact of returning “Home” EBITDA to positive territory by 2012. Specifically EE will increase targeting of home broadband to its existing Orange mobile customers initially, and also introduce it to T-Home customers during 2011. Marketing will also encourage take-up of fixed voice by Orange and T-Home customers, since EE claims that the BT deal means that acquiring fixed voice customers would no longer have a negative margin impact on overall performance as was previously the case. The company is planning for 80% of new broadband customers to include fixed voice as part of their package. Potentially even more significant will be EE’s plans for IPTV, once they are finally confirmed. The company announced that it is looking at IPTV opportunities, including Canvas, the BBC-led over-the-top initiative. It would not join Canvas as a shareholder, but is considering affiliate membership. Whatever decision is eventually made on IPTV, EE will not become a major content player, which will come as a relief to shareholders and a disappointment to content rights holders looking for new competitors in the distribution market in order to boost values. EE even has the UK’s long-awaited fibre rollout on its radar. Its agreement with BT allows for access to the new fiber network by EE, although no specific plans have been agreed. Other emerging opportunities on EE’s radar include M2M (machine-to-machine), in which the company includes connected home devices and home automation as specific “high growth” verticals. M2M is a broad concept which may certainly one day lead to services and applications which approach “everything everywhere” capability. In the meantime, EE has probably has enough on its plate just to meet its growth and profitability targets in its core mobile and broadband businesses. Client Reading: Global Broadband Forecast 1H2010

Many thanks to Jeff Baumgartner at Light Reading for reminding me of my post last September concerning ActiveVideo Networks and the company's suitability as a potential Cisco acquisition. I had also just noted that ActiveVideo is planning to exhibit on Cisco's stand at this year's IBC starting tomorrow. I'm sure the relationship is quite harmless at the moment, but who knows where things may lead? If you're at IBC, hurry to register for our free-to-attend 3DTV Analyst Forum. We’ll be presenting great insights from our 3DTV research, and Sky’s Brian Lenz, who has headed up the company’s 3D initiative, will be giving the audience his thoughts on our findings as well as an update on Sky’s 3D launch plans. Attendees are invited to register in advance by visiting www.strategyanalytics.com/ibc2010.html. Meet Our Analysts: 3DTV Analyst Forum at IBC 2010

A year ago almost to the day we called for Ofcom to put an end to ISPs’ ridiculous practice of describing broadband speeds with the meaningless phrase “up to”. Now Ofcom is again skirting around the issue in its latest survey of UK broadband speeds. Its own data shows that while “headline” speeds (ie the theoretical maximum – and even they are not true) have increased significantly over the past year, the actual speed achieved as a proportion of that “top” speed has actually fallen, from 58% to 46%. The craziness is illustrated further by the fact that the average speed attained by customers subscribing to “up to 20Mbps” packages is only 6.8Mbps, ie lower than the “headline” speed of inferior “up to 8Mbps” packages. The average download speed for all DSL connections has increased by only 10% over the past 12 months, from 3.7Mbps to 4.0Mbps, in spite of the fact that many more customers are being offered “up to” 20Mbps packages (ie DSL 2+). Note that the primary factor behind the higher increase in UK speeds overall is because of Virgin Media’s upgrading of its cable service: average cable broadband speeds have more than doubled, from 4.9Mbps to 9.9Mbps. That’s a testament to the growing strength of the UK’s cable operator, and an indictment of the recent supposed improvements in the DSL network. Ofcom’s excuse regarding regulating the “up to” nonsense is that this is not its job, but that of the advertising regulator. We regard this as a cop-out. Ofcom does have a Voluntary Code of Practice which “ensures that consumers are given the clearest possible information on access line speeds at point of sale”, and if that doesn’t relate to advertising, I don’t know what does. The Code of Practice talks a lot about maximum speeds, but not about minimums. This now has to change. Even with the well-known limitations of DSL technology, in the second decade of the 21st century customers have a right to know what minimum level of service they should expect to receive in return for their hard-earned pounds. BT will moan that it cannot yet deliver a minimum of 2Mbps to some parts of the country, so those remoter rural areas should be considered a special case, where “true” broadband (however that is defined) is technically (and temporarily) unavailable. This all goes back to early political demands that broadband be made “universally” available, and the politically inspired nonsense that 99% of UK homes can get DSL broadband services. Yes, but only if you count 250kbps as broadband. We need to step back so that we can move forward. The reality is that a small percentage – perhaps 5% - of UK homes are currently out of reach of 1-2Mbps+ broadband services, and remain “geographically challenging”. That needs to be accepted as a policy issue and targeted accordingly. The market as a whole should no longer be distorted because of this artificial and technical constraint. Once those homes are identified, the rest of the country should be given guarantees of minimum service, and tiered services will emerge which will give customers a great deal more clarity and confidence than they have had until now. Client Reading: Global Broadband Scorecard: 2010 Broadband Composite Index (BCI) Rankings

Returning to temperate climes after my first “summer” visit to Las Vegas, I am more amazed than ever at Nevada residents’ ability to withstand daily temperatures of 40 degrees plus and practically zero humidity. At least I now know what 108 Fahrenheit feels like. The contrast between this and a proper British summer (a few days of 25C followed by cool cloud and rain) could not be more stark. Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay was the venue for Cisco’s annual customer gathering, which this year also brought together a hundred or so analysts for in-depth discussion of product and commercial strategy. The highlight product announcement was the Cius, as reported by my colleague, Susan Welsh de Grimaldo. While the company has not officially announced pricing, I expect it to be closer to $1000 than $500. Cisco is quite clear that the Cius is positioned as an enterprise solution, and these prices are likely to prevent much leakage towards “unofficial” consumer markets. What was most interesting, perhaps, is the genesis of the Cius within the Cisco organisation. It was obvious from many conversations that few people were aware of its development until very shortly before its unveiling. Even John Chambers himself claims to have been unaware of it until two months ago. If the product proves successful it will be further justification of Cisco’s innovation in organisation and management which allows dynamic cross-fertilisation of ideas across multiple teams. The other news centered on home energy management, where Cisco is launching a “Home Energy Controller” allied to Cisco Energy Management Services, which will be offered by utility companies to help consumers understand and control their energy consumption. The Controller uses Zigbee, WiFi and other home networking technologies to exchange data with and, potentially, control a variety of home devices. Much of our discussion with Cisco execs centered on the challenges and opportunities for service providers offered by OTT video, as well as the potential for telepresence in the home environment. Telepresence has a been a success for Cisco in the corporate market, and it is still on track to bring a consumer solution to the market by the end of 2010. It still strikes many people, both in the industry and consumers, as odd that Cisco should have a serious consumer strategy. While its brand presence is growing, not many would consider it as a competitor to the Sonys, Samsungs and Apples of the world. And there is no doubt that the company’s financial power is built on its core network switching and routing market dominance. Cisco does have key positions in home networking and set-top boxes, as well as the TV and broadband service provider space, but the jury is still out on whether Cisco itself will become an overall leader in consumer markets over the next decade. But consumer players cannot ignore Cisco as an influence on market direction. Its innovation processes, as demonstrated by Cius, will combine with its financial strength to create a wave of consumer innovations over the coming years. Many may fail, but it will only take a few to be successful for rivals to feel the heat. Client Reading: Chasing the Elusive IPTV Business Model: NDS, Cisco and Comcast to the Rescue?

“Hybrid” was one of the hot themes at this year’s IPTV World Forum a couple of weeks ago in London, in spite of the fact that the concept of melding two or more services into one is hardly new. But the term was scarcely mentioned here at the NAB Show, and when I suggested to Sezmi’s VP of Network Engineering and Operations, Veeraraghavan Krishnan, that his company offered a hybrid solution it didn’t appear to ring any bells. But hybrid TV is exactly what Sezmi has developed. The company began its commercial launch six weeks ago in Los Angeles and its set-top boxes are available in Best Buy at $299. Customers receive the standard digital terrestrial TV ATSC channels available in their local area, together with content delivered in two additional ways: via the broadband Internet connection; and in additional capacity over the wireless broadcast signal, which Sezmi licenses from local broadcasters. Sezmi’s playout facility in Florida determines what spectrum is available in each location and balances the use of broadcast and IP delivery accordingly. In general the system pushes more popular content to the broadcast spectrum, as expected, but is flexible enough to adapt on an hourly basis. Krishnan took me briefly through the viewer guide. The clever thing about Sezmi is that there really is no easy way for the user to know how content is delivered. The menu disguises the content’s origin, whether it arrives on demand over the Internet (and downloaded progressively), or stored on the set-top box’s 1TB HDD. The demonstration on the show floor inevitably suffered from some buffering and access issues. Sezmi claims that users require a 1.5Mbps broadband connection in order to watch internet-based video. We also discussed Sezmi’s decision to offer personalised content. When the box is switched on users have to log in, either as individuals or as a guest. We’ve pointed out before that the large screen TV is problematic when it comes to personalisation because it is usually sited in a multi-viewer environment. Which family member is supposed to log in to see their personal recommendations when everyone else is also watching TV? Krishnan did not appear to have an answer to this point beyond suggesting that the family should log in as a “guest” in their own home… It’s important that Sezmi sorts out its position on this question because one of its next steps will be to introduce targeted advertising. If broadcasters and, more importantly, advertisers, are to benefit from that capability they will need better clarity on which viewer or viewers they are targeting. There have been lots of discussions about Sezmi’s opportunities and business models. The assumption seems to be that people will not pay $299 up front for a subscription TV service that costs either $4.99 or $19.99 a month. As always, I’m not sure it’s as simple as that, and there may well be segments who find that a lower cost alternative to cable or satellite TV which blends broadcast and online content may be attractive. Whether those segments are large enough to sustain Sezmi towards profitability seems rather uncertain, but broadcasters cannot afford to ignore this sort of innovation in their battle for survival. David Mercer Client Reading: Global Digital Television Forecast: 1H'10

As we reported today, the global IPTV subscriber base reached more than 30 million households last year. It's difficult to imagine that major vendors such as Alcatel were predicting 100 million by this stage a few years ago. That sort of over-optimism is hardly new, but in this case reflected a failure to appreciate the strategic challenges facing telcos as they entered the TV market. My colleague Ben Piper suggests that the IPTV market globally may be hitting a speedbump: perhaps it just never built up much speed in the first place. IPTV was supposed to be different. The built-in ability to integrate communications services with content delivery, together with one-to-one targeted delivery, would enable powerful and compelling new features and experiences which would help telcos leapfrog their established competitors in the cable and satellite industry. But instead of changing the game most telcos which offer IPTV today still play to the rules originally fixed by the incumbents. Most could not avoid getting dragged into content rights battles and disputes, and few if any have deployed the sort of exciting advanced capabilities which have been on show at countless exhibitions over the past decade or so. Which brings us to this year's IPTV World Forum, opening tomorrow at London's Olympia. Ericsson gave us a preview of its announcements this evening, which are encompassed by the new tag-line “End-to-Endless Television”, or “E2E TV” for short. Sure enough they include subjects such as on-demand advertising, new connected IP devices and hybrid solutions. Without doubt what I am most looking forward to seeing is Ericsson's IPTV Remote. Someone will explain to me one day why a home device with no obvious cellar network implications was launched at Mobile World Congress; in any case now that the mobile phone industry has seen it we await reaction from its core target customer base. Ericsson describes the IPTV Remote as the best thing they have done in a long while. The challenge for Ericsson, like its competitors, is that it does not sell these products to consumers, who are the end users, but to service providers and operators, who decide what they think their customers will want and will make them money, before making them available to the likes of you and me. Ericsson carries out a lot of its own consumer research to identify future customer needs, but it still has to persuade its operator customers of the validity of these predictions. Many of these scenarios sound good in a Powerpoint; Ericsson’s own presentation sees the future of TV as “blended services”, “converged interactive communication”, and “your media anywhere, anytime”. I hate to sound like a weary old cynic, but we have heard these promises more than a few times over the years. But I do look forward to seeing the IPTV Remote in action, and maybe, just maybe, this 10” touchscreen “tablet” (definitely not an iAnything) will persuade operators that their customers might value their service over their competitors for the privilege of using a particular device, rather than receiving targeted ads or first run movies. Our own research showed TV viewers are waiting for touch screen controllers, so Ericsson may be on to a good thing. David Mercer Client Reading: Orange's IPTV Challenge: Create a Non-Content Differentiator

The tone of this year's Supercomm is certainly more political than usual, with net neutrality at the center. Otherwise benign speeches and presentations are punctuated with "keep government out of broadband" taglines. All of this is very à propos, of course, as the FCC today is expected to vote on a proposal giving the green light to rules formulation on net neutrality--something the Telcos view as an existential threat. In yesterday's keynote, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg ripped the idea of net neutrality as "a mistake, pure and simple--an analog idea in a digital universe," and blasted the "Silicon Valley digital elites" (oh God, using "elite" perjoratively is sooo 2008!). Net neutrality threatens to stifle progress, he suggested, noting that "if we can't earn a return on the investments we make in broadband capaicty, our progress toward a connected world will be delayed, if not halted altogether." In what some have referred to as "astroturfing," i.e., creating an artificial grass roots movement, Seidenberg suggested that net neutrality could create a public safety hazard, saying "If we can't differentiate betewen packets, we can't prioritize emergency communications for first responders, telesurgery or heart-monitor readings for digital medicine, or videoconferencing over spam for telecommuters." While it may tug at the heartstrings, the argument is a bit of a red herring. Nothing in the net neutrality discussions occuring now would prevent lawful and reasonable network management. Today's decision should come as no surprise to anyone; the US policy on net neutrality was effectively made last November with the election of a new administration. Twitter: twitter.com/DavidMercer_SA Client Reading: US IPTV Market Sizing: 15.5 Million Subscribers by 2013