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Verizon FiOS Repeats as Most Competitive Telecom Provider in 2008; Google is Most Competitive Media & Web Property, According to wRatings Annual Study Sponsored by SAP
Answers to staying competitive in 2008 downturn are different than in early 2000s. Several top companies, like News Corp., Viacom and the newly formed Scripps Network Interactive, are weaving diverse properties together to create powerful barriers to entry that prove difficult for rivals to duplicate.
HERNDON, Va., Jul 02, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- The wRatings Corporation, an independent competitive research
firm, announced today the results of the annual Most Competitive Media
& Telecom Study, which was sponsored by SAP AG (NYSE:SAP), the world's
leading provider of business software*. In the report, Verizon FiOS
(NYSE:VZ) repeats as No. 1 for Telecom Providers with a W Score(TM) of
73.0. Two business segments of Google, their Shopping/Services and
their Search engine, rank as the No. 1 and 2 Media Properties with W
Scores of 88.8 and 88.2 respectively. A W Score of 100 means the
business built the highest consumer and economic advantages when
compared with the 540+ companies in the wRatings national coverage.
"In turbulent times, consumers become highly selective and seek
out only the companies best meeting their expectations," said Gary A.
Williams, CEO & Founder of wRatings. "And expectations today are much
different than ever before. The answer in the early 2000's downturn
was for companies to return to the basics and shred non-core business
segments. What's different in 2008 is that the most competitive
companies are breaking outside of traditional industry boundaries to
weave all their segments into a cohesive business. Just look at Apple,
Google, News Corp. and Verizon, where they are all reaching beyond
their core industry to build a competitive edge."
The Most Competitive report series from wRatings identifies the
best performing companies or business segments through a patented
method that blends financial and consumer data. To arrive at the
rankings, wRatings independently conducts 50,000+ consumer interviews
each quarter to rate how well companies meet their expectations. The
2008 Media & Telecom ratings are based on Q1-2008 data. Specifically,
wRatings measures a company's ability to achieve higher economic
profit than rivals and sustain that advantage through competitive
moats, or barriers to entry, as rated by consumers. Each W Score
blends a company's historical economic profit with its forward-looking
ability to meet consumer expectations.
One of the world's greatest investors, Warren Buffett, doesn't
invest in a company without a moat to protect its profits. The
wRatings approach identifies nine moats that create a durable
advantage and measures them in a consistent way across every industry.
Just as investors compare key financials between companies, W Scores
allow anyone to compare consumer advantages between sectors,
industries and any individual company. The rankings paint a clear
picture of those companies projected to perform the best financially
and meet their forecasts.
Top 20 Most Competitive Media & Web Properties
Web properties occupy ten of the top 20 spots in 2008. Google
remains a dominant force, although newly formed SNI's properties HGTV
and Food Network channel repeat in the top 10 properties from 2007.
Absent from the top 20 this year is Yahoo! - not a single property
(Yahoo! Search, News or Content) scored high enough overall. All three
did score high with consumers, but the inability to generate economic
profit at Yahoo! Inc. held them out. Interestingly, the Microsoft
properties (MSN Content and Search) are the reverse with high economic
profit from Microsoft Corp. and low consumer ratings.
2008 RANK 2007 RANK MEDIA/WEB PROPERTY PARENT COMPANY W SCORE(TM)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1 13 Google Google Inc. 88.8
Shopping/Services
2 4 Google Search Google Inc. 88.2
3 7 wsj.com News Corp. 85.0
(NWS.A)
4 5 HGTV Channel Scripps Network 83.7
(SNI)
5 3 NYTimes.com New York Times 83.4
Co.
6 2 Wall Street Journal News Corp. 81.8
(NWS.A)
7 6 Food Network Channel Scripps Network 79.9
(SNI)
8 8 WashingtonPost.com Washington Post 76.1
Co. (WPO)
9 14 JDPower.com The McGraw-Hill 74.5
Companies
10 20 Google News Google Inc. 72.2
----------------------------------------------------------------------
11 12 Nickelodeon Viacom (VIA.B) 71.2
12 1 YouTube Google Inc. 70.5
13 10 BusinessWeek.com The McGraw-Hill 68.5
Companies
14 15 Disney Channel Walt Disney Co. 67.0
(DIS)
15 25 Washington Post Washington Post 63.5
Co. (WPO)
16 30 Apple iTunes Apple Inc. 62.1
(AAPL)
17 19 CNBC News General Electric 59.9
(GE)
18 27 VH1 Channel Viacom (VIA.B) 58.8
19 18 BusinessWeek The McGraw-Hill 57.6
Companies
20 17 MS-NBC Channel General Electric 57.5
(GE)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Top 20 Most Competitive Telecom Properties
Being a slow growth industry that typically requires substantial
investments, the Telecom industry continues to struggle to find
competitive strengths. No doubt they remain integral and essential to
the end consumer's experience. The challenge for Telecom providers is
to find sources of advantage that cannot be easily duplicated by
rivals. For the past five years, the industry has looked to pricing
packages and bundles that are relatively easy to copy.
Contrasted with other providers, Verizon is building a significant
barrier to entry with consumers. Verizon FiOS, ranked #1 two years in
a row, is highly unique although expensive to build. But the payoff
likely lifted their traditional wireline service from #20 in 2007 to
#6 in 2008 due to their innovative approach.
2008 RANK 2007 RANK TELECOM PROVIDER PARENT COMPANY W SCORE(TM)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1 1 Verizon FiOS Verizon Comm. Inc. 73.0
(VZ)
2 5 Frontier Phone Citizens Comm. Co. 52.9
(CZN)
3 4 DISH Network Dish Network Corp. 42.3
(DISH)
4 8 Embarq Phone Embarq Corp. (EQ) 41.7
5 10 Qwest Telephone Qwest Comm Int'l Inc. 35.8
(Q)
6 19 Verizon Verizon Comm. Inc. 35.0
Telephone (VZ)
7 15 Windstream Phone Windstream Corp. 32.9
(WIN)
8 11 Alltel Alltel Corp (AT) 32.4
9 16 Verizon Wireless Verizon Comm. Inc. 32.1
(VZ)
10 2 Charter Cable Charter Comm Inc. 31.9
(CHTR)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
11 20 Comcast Cable Comcast Inc. (CMCSA) 30.6
12 17 Sprint Nextel Sprint Nextel Corp. 29.5
(S)
13 22 AT&T Wireless AT&T Inc. (T) 28.7
14 6 Skype Ebay Inc. (EBAY) 27.2
15 14 CenturyTel Centurytel Inc. (CTL) 24.3
16 25 Cablevision Cablevision Sys Corp. 24.2
(CVC)
17 23 DirecTV DirecTV Group Inc. 20.8
18 12 T-Mobile USA Deusche Telekom ADR 19.4
19 9 TiVo Tivo Inc. 18.1
20 3 AT&T Telephone AT&T Inc. (T) 14.9
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The 2008 edition of Most Competitive Media & Telecom companies
shows a breakdown of the top 20 in each industry, unveils critical
trends in consumer expectations and pricing power, and spotlights
several companies in the top 20. SAP is offering a complimentary
version of the report for a limited time here:
http://www.sap.com/usa/industries/media/index.epx.
Premiums Subscribers to the wRatings data receive the report at no
charge. The wRatings research is sold via an annual premium
subscription to investors, corporations, marketers and consultants.
Individual company reports can also be purchased at the website. To
learn about your subscription options or purchase reports, visit
www.wratings.com. To view annual rankings of the Top 40 Most
Competitive Companies since 2002, go to
https://www.wratings.com/reports.php?s=5.
About the Most Competitive Reports
The W Report(TM) series identifies companies projected to "win"
more customers and generate economic profit by utilizing patented
methods (US Patent 6,658,391) from wRatings. Rankings use an
algorithmic formula originally developed in 1999 and then refined in
February 2004. The W Score(TM) is a percentile ranking of companies
using a sliding scale of historical economic profit (2003-2007) and
current year's (Q1-2008) total moat score. Economic profit is a
company's return on invested capital in excess of weighted average
cost of capital. Total moats are from a quantitative consumer
interview database and are the sum score of nine areas of competitive
advantage. The more moats and higher total moat score indicate a
greater likelihood of sustaining a competitive advantage. To be
considered in the rankings, companies must have either a dominant
market share or wide recognition among the general U.S. population and
have publicly available financial data. Industries covered include
Automotive, Consumer Goods, Electronics, Financials, Health Care,
Home, Media, Restaurants, Retail, Telecom, Travel and Utilities & Gas.
The W Report, W Score and wRatings logo are trademarks of wRatings
Corporation.
About wRatings Corporation
The wRatings Corporation is an independent competitive research
firm based in metro Washington DC. Gary A. Williams, CEO & Founder,
and his team have been conducting primary research on an original set
of leading indicators that measure competitive advantage since 1999.
Gary and his team continually analyze market leading companies to
predict their future performance based on 35+ million data points
collected using his common framework. For more information, visit
www.wratings.com.
(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise
resource planning and related applications such as supply chain
management, customer relationship management, product life-cycle
management and supplier relationship management.
SAP and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of
SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries.
All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks
of their respective companies.
SOURCE: wRatings Corporation
wRatings Corporation Beth Green, 703-788-6532 beth.green@wratings.com
Copyright Business Wire 2008
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