Vodafone Results and Why Bloggers' Mindshare Will Trump Brokers'

Yesterday's Vodafone Q1 KPI release and conference call brought another epiphany in my mental musings on why broker research is likely to be toast in the long run. Management were pretty forthright in saying that a lot of the metrics traditionally used to assess company performance have become less relevant in saturated markets with multiple SIM ownership (Italy they cited as an example of a market with an average SIM per customer of 1.3), and I would have to agree.

Yet there we were, 50 or so sell-side analysts who cover the company, God knows how many on the buy-side, individual investors, media, bloggers, etc., all spending a good few hours poring over these same statistics which contain a lot of distortions, in search of some magical message - namely what is the true underlying trend in usage per real person?

The rather staid note I wrote for clients politely expressed frustration at the exercise (what exactly do you do with a near-15% inactivity level in the UK?), but the likes of Keith and Dean can be more direct and immediate. Like I said quite some time ago, I feel confident that the bloggers' mindshare will expand to the detriment of brokers' research.

Check out the Vodafone AGM webcast at 11:00 AM UK time (12:00 PM CET) - it's better than reality TV. Will they or won't they, does he or doesn't he? Ultimately, it doesn't matter. This company faces big challenges no matter who is in charge.

Now back to the trenches...