We outline our ‘proxy model’ for valuing Digital Services Businesses, based on current best practice, which has significant advantages over traditional approaches. This report, our second of two on valuation, gives a worked example of a telco’s digital business in Asia that is already worth $1bn, and includes an analysis of approaches being taken by some leading telcos today.
The valuation of digital businesses is vital because it drives key strategy and investment decisions, yet highly contentious, as there are many different possible approaches. In the first of two reports on this topic, we appraise the main external valuation methods, and their suitability for use or otherwise with new telecoms business models.
STL Partners’ industry transformation analysis, including a recent global survey of telco executives, suggests operators’ digital ambitions are rising fast but, given 9 substantial implementation challenges, too little is currently being done to engender successful industry-wide business model transformation. We also look at the lessons from NTT DoCoMo, one of the operators that has made the most overall progress towards a ‘digital’ model.