jka on economics UK

#GMTweetmap How big is the Greater Manchester Twitter population? GM is the Twitter Capital outside of London

It is estimated there are some five million users of Twitter in the UK but this figure has never been fully accredited as far as I can determine. It is also estimated the fall off rate, or lapsed rate, is quite high, as much as 40% in the first three months. Many register and fail to follow through with a good Twitter programme for tweets, friends and followers.

To estimate the Manchester population, we can get some assistance from ranking sites such as http://twitaholic.com. Globally, we discover that Lady Gaga has over eleven million followers and is following 143,000 people. That must keep her social media team pretty occupied. More so Barack Obama having to track 700,000 people tweeting and being followed by 8.7 million people. That must be quite the challenge for the SM team, the FBI and the CIA.

The http://twitaholic.com. search for Manchester produces a top one hundred list which is neither clean or up to date. It also includes media and sports stars which we would wish to eradicate from the pro.manchester #GMTweetmap. It provides some useful guidelines and names for inclusion but suggests only seven hundred followers are needed to get into the top one hundred.

A better site for purpose is http://followerwonk.com. A search for Manchester produces a return of over 60,000 twitter users (60,609). This compares well with Liverpool (28,978), Glasgow, (27,808), Leeds (23,457), Bristol (22,636) and Edinburgh (19,241). Manchester is clearly the Twitter capital outside of London. [London has 369,033 users].

If the UK gross population is five million for Twitter, the Greater Manchester estimate would be around 200,000 maximum. Allowing for Home Counties bias, and a high wastage rate, the http://followerwonk.com figure is a great start point and represents a fantastic sample for analysis.

Analysing the data, 80% of twitter users in Manchester have less than 150 followers. To be in the top 20% you would need an average of 685 followers and over eleven hundred to be in the top 10%. Yes it is true, I have undertaken that analysis. It makes a great long tail profile.

As for the @pro.manchester #GMTweetmap, the results can be downloaded Download @promanchester #GmTweetmap Individuals. We rank our own top 250 key Social Media gurus in the city. There appears to be a near 60:40 male:female ratio. To get on the map follow me @jkaonline. The automated web site will follow in due course. Check it out. Are you on the map?

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The views expressed are my own and in no way reflect pro.manchester policy. In no way should the comments be considered as investment advice or guidelines or reflect political bias. UK Economics news and analysis : no politics, no dogma, no polemics, just facts. JKA is a visiting professor at MMU Business School, an economist and specialist in Corporate Strategy, educated at LSE, London Business School with a PhD from Manchester Metropolitan University.

Groupon IPO - things going well - send more money - the burn rate is back.

“The Groupon IPO filing is out, and, as expected, it’s hugely entertaining. The risks section alone is more than 13,000 words, or around the length of a decent-sized novella” says Paul Kedrosky, blogging with Bloomberg this week. He even encloses a word cloud of the risks section. 

The filing is worth a read. It begins with a caveat : “If we fail to retain our existing subscribers or acquire new subscribers, our revenue and business will be harmed.”

You can see the problem. Groupon lost $389.6 million in 2010 on revenues of $713.4 million. In the first quarter of 2011, revenues had soared to $645 million but the losses were over $100 million. The marketing spend in the first three months was $400m that’s around 60% of revenues. With a gross margin of 40%, it creates something of a problem for the bottom line. The accumulated deficit was $522.1 million as of March 31, 2011. 

Revenues have increased from $30 million in 2009 to $713 million in 2010 and in 2011 could hit $2.5 billion (pro rata basis). Subscribers have increased from 50 million in 2010 to 80.1 million in the first quarter of 2011. 

The company turned down a $6bn approach from Google in December. There was speculation earlier this year that Groupon could raise as much as $1bn in an IPO, which could value the daily deals site at between $15bn and $20bn.

The value is in the database of 100 million plus subscribers which should be achieved this year. The issue is the sustainability of the model once the cost of acquisition or transaction is trimmed. The average subscriber revenue in 2010 was $14.10 and in the first quarter of 2011 was $7.75. The acquisition and marketing cost per subscriber was $8.64 in 2010 and $4.83 in the first three months of 2011.

The chart illustrates the revenues per subscriber in Chicago, Boston and London. The trend is to just over $12 over time. It is a huge churn of a low average subscriber value and an average transaction value of $22.00.

As a chief exec of a large organisation, the one message from the front line we used to dread was “Things going well send more money.” The dot.com boom has been and gone but the “burn rate” is back.

The risks are weighty and fully explained in the 13,000 word risk section.

"We anticipate that our operating expenses will increase substantially in the foreseeable future as we continue to invest to increase our subscriber base, increase the number and variety of deals we offer each day, expand our marketing channels, expand our operations, hire additional employees and develop our technology platform."

"These efforts may prove more expensive than we currently anticipate, and we may not succeed in increasing our revenue sufficiently to offset these higher expenses. Many of our efforts to generate revenue from our business are new and unproven, and any failure to increase our revenue could prevent us from attaining or increasing profitability." 

"We cannot be certain that we will be able to attain or increase profitability on a quarterly or annual basis. If we are unable to effectively manage these risks and difficulties as we encounter them, our business, financial condition and results of operations may suffer.................." You have been warned.

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The views expressed are my own and in no way reflect pro.manchester policy. In no way should the comments be considered as investment advice or guidelines or reflect political bias. UK Economics news and analysis : no politics, no dogma, no polemics, just facts. JKA is a visiting professor at MMU Business School, an economist and specialist in Corporate Strategy, educated at LSE, London Business School with a PhD from Manchester Metropolitan University.

Rebalancing the UK economy is incoherent mishmash verging on codswallop says Tyrie

Incoherent “mish mash” verging on “codswallop” is how plans to rebalance the economy have been described by Andrew Tyrie, Chairman of the Commons Treasury Select committee according to an article in the Financial Times on Bank Holiday Monday.  “I don’t think ministers have used the term with sufficient precision” said the no nonsense MP for Chichester. I like Andrew Tyrie, he gained a formidable reputation following his aggressive cross-questioning of the bank bosses during the banking crisis and has twice been voted The Spectator’s back bencher of the year.

We used video clips of Andrew at the pro.manchester Business Conference in March and hope to have the real version with us next year.  “Rebalancing” has entered the lexicon of the coalition along with the “Big Society”. Margaret Thatcher, famously denounced the existence of society of any dimension, it would be interesting to note what the Baroness would make of this novel trope. As for “rebalancing” the economy and the “march of the makers”, this really is rhetoric from the debating room rather than a policy for action.

Roger Bootle of Capital Economics has suggested that rebalancing was acceptable rhetoric, “The idea of lifting manufacturing from under 12% of the economy to 15% in a few years was “plausible”. Blimey, that’s a 30% increase in output from a sector which is still recovering from a near 20% down turn during the recession.

As for march of the makers the government places great emphasis on the Dyson ‘Ingenious Britain’ report, this from a man who famously marched all of his makers to Asia to minimise production costs. 

In 1970, manufacturing accounted for almost 30% of UK GDP. It was the year in which I graduated from LSE and joined almost one hundred graduates on an eighteen month management training scheme with Tube Investments, one of the largest manufacturing conglomerates in the UK. 

The initial three months were spent at Oldbury Technical College in the West Midlands. We did welding, metal work, patent making and casting as well as a stream of management training classes. Each week, we would visit a company within the group, British Aluminium, Bacofoil, Raleigh Bicycles, Creda cookers, Stainless Steel manufacturers, Exhaust manufacturers, tube makers. There can be nothing more dramatic than the Pilger process, aluminium extrusion or steel production to impress a social scientist graduate.

One of the highlights of the three months was a visit to Round Oak Steel works, where we did see steel being poured in what is now probably the lingerie section of Marks and Spencers in the Merry Hill Shopping centre. So many of the Tube Investment names and processes have disappeared from the UK.

Manufacturing now accounts for around 11% of output compared to almost 30% in 1970. Manufacturing is experiencing above trend growth as it always does at this stage in the cycle. It’s like falling off a cliff and recovering from a coma, a recovery of sorts but still a long way off the top. An industry struggling to find its feet again is a rebalancing of sorts, but it is more like a prize fighter staggering to his feet after a near knock out punch. It is rebalancing George but not as you mean it.  That's verging on codswallop.

Financial Times : UK Economy Plans branded incoherent 30th June 2011

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The views expressed are my own and in no way reflect pro.manchester policy. In no way should the comments be considered as investment advice or guidelines or reflect political bias. UK Economics news and analysis : no politics, no dogma, no polemics, just facts. JKA is a visiting professor at MMU Business School, an economist and specialist in Corporate Strategy, educated at LSE, London Business School with a PhD from Manchester Metropolitan University.