Telco spend-o-rama

Just the other day, in putting together our new Global Monthly note, I constructed a couple of model portfolios - one of conventional telcos, the other companies in ancillary industries which might be beneficiaries of disruptive technologies, greater competition, and telco adventurism into new markets and product offerings. Four of the ancillary stocks I chose (Havas, WPP, Google and Yahoo!) were on the basis of ballooning expenditures from the sector on advertising. Today we get some confirmation of this view from Nielsen//NetRatings, who find that in the US, telcos are the fastest growing segment of online advertisers, as measured by share of impressions. Within the telecom industry segments, the only category which grew its share of impressions in 2004 was internet telephony and messaging (6% of total industry impressions, up from 2% last year). Little Vonage took 10% of total industry impressions, double the level claimed by BellSouth and AWE. Clearly they're buying the right real estate, but that is a limited commodity, and I would expect it's going to get pricier this year.