In this quarterly strategy report, we look to evaluate where we are with regards the bull market conditions, and where those indicators might be headed, factoring in the downside risks, from Trump tariffs and the US economy, BoJ actions, Japanese earnings and valuations.
Aggregate service revenue trended better on higher contribution from non-mobile, coupled with mobile improvement. Industry mobile was primarily driven by Softbank’s outperformance. Q3 EBITDA dropped on higher mobile marketing costs at NTT which the company seeks to offset through cost efficiencies. DOCOMO is the clear mobile underperformer, but we believe expectations for Fixed recovery is still low, plus there is IOWN optionality. NTT remains our preferred pick.
The Stargate announcement – The $500bn datacenter, was the opportunity for us to bring together a number of analyses we have carried out in recent weeks, to understand how the economics of AI Infrastructure will shape up over time. We bring together, in the piece we publish today, an initial perspective, which might be groundbreaking. This work will help us understand how the AI landscape will shape up in the next 2-3 years, expect more from us on that topic in coming weeks and months.
Service revenue slowed for the incumbents but stayed in the low-single digit band, with Softbank still ahead followed by NTT. Mobile divergence continues to play out with SB leading the pack and is likely to remain so in our view. Industry EBITDA improved as NTT inflected to growth and led to a strong EBIT beat this quarter.
Softbank printed a strong beat across its revenue and net profit, ahead by 5% and 6% respectively. Consequently, management raised its FY24 guidance by roughly 2% for Revenue, EBITDA and Net profit while EBIT was raised by 5.6%.
When the BoJ raised rates in March, it had been 17 years since it had last done so, though the world was very different then. While the July rate hike was unlikely to move the economic needle, the question now is what else might follow the subsequent financial market maelstrom. Pelham Smithers discusses the outlook for Japan’s macro environment, what new fiscal policies the new PM might introduce, how the BoJ might react and the all-important trend in corporate earnings. This then leads us to...
Topline beat estimates by 3%, underpinned by the outperformance from Enterprise and Distribution. For the first time since FY19, mobile ARPU has inflected to growth (+0.3%) with continued momentum in mobile service revenue. Both operating profit and bottom line are now tracking ahead of the full year’s guidance.
For several years, our thesis had been that a lack of meaningful impact by Rakuten would lift all 3 incumbents. However, the launch of integrated financial services products shifted this, and this has been confirmed we think by Q4 figures; Japan is now a “winner takes all” market, with SoftBank the winner.
Softbank delivered a strong beat on EBITDA and net profit this quarter, with mobile accelerating as the benefits of financial integration into mobile plans continued to flow through. Guidance was mixed however, impacted by the ¥150bn investments going into generative AI. As a result, compared to a scenario without these investments, the guided EBIT was lower by ¥30bn/year for FY24 and FY25, but in line with previous figures.
LY delivered yet another strong EBITDA beat, ahead of consensus by 16%. Against consensus expectations, FY24 guidance was in line for revenue while ahead on EBITDA. Encouragingly, the company has also laid out a bullish EPS target of more than ¥20 for FY25 (vs. ¥18.7 previously) which reflects the company’s focus on efficiency and profitability, and would be positive if the company can achieve it.
We ran our Asia Telco tour last week. This time we met 12 companies in 3 countries (Korea, Japan, Thailand). Telco share prices in all 3 of these countries have been pretty strong recently as telcos continue to benefit from generally positive themes: growth, return on capital and shareholder remuneration are all typically improving.
Service revenue trend was softer on slower non-mobile this quarter. Collectively, mobile revenue trend (Consumer + Enterprise) maintained its second consecutive of growth and operators are implying a strong Q4. For instance, Softbank is expecting Consumer MSR to rebound this year (at flat YTD); NTT implying a strong Q4 EBIT on cost reductions and streamlining of non-core assets like Real Estate.
Wireless spectrum is one of the most valuable commodities in the telecoms market. Japanese telcos have previously been issued spectrum for free. But what if it starts to be auctioned? In this note, we use our new proprietary SpectrumHub Global Database to calculate the likely cost of mmWave spectrum in Japan. We also look at the total value of all spectrum held by the incumbents, to address the implications if Japan were to move to auction for all spectrum.
LY delivered a strong EBITDA beat today, ahead consensus by 9% and upgraded EBITDA guidance for the full year, from +10% to +17%. We observed strong momentum in Commerce and Strategic. Beginning from this quarter onwards, the company had reallocated its costs, mostly to its Media and Commerce business and a smaller proportion to Strategic., thus retroactive revisions were made.
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