Just looking at my Spark plans and One nz seem to be giving some heavy discounts for Broadband and more data on cell phones. Maybe time for a change when the cost of living increases for many.
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Just looking at my Spark plans and One nz seem to be giving some heavy discounts for Broadband and more data on cell phones. Maybe time for a change when the cost of living increases for many.
Considering so many government IT projects fail or get endlessly extended, a 7.5% cull of projects or of project cost is pretty reasonable. Releases resources both internally and externally to make the remaining projects cheaper and more likely to succeed.
Not great for Spark but an opportunity to control costs.
I was referring to a comment by CEO Jolie Hodson at the full year for FY2023 Q&A session IIRC, following a slightly disappointing 'Spark Health' result. I imagined it was something to do with integrating health databases nationwide in a process of bringing all the disparate district health board records together. I may be wrong about that. But the basic idea is that you could go to a health specialist anywhere in the country and they would have access to your health records. I am not sure how far along the track this process is.
SNOOPY
Some emotive language here. Perhaps it is time to step back and look at some facts. As it happens Spark has just become more transparent about all of this by releasing their HY2024 result in a more granulated way that allows shareholders to see exactly how their business units are doing in revenue terms.. From 'note 3' 'Segment Information' in that release.
HY2024 HY2023 Mobile $749m $732m Procurement & Partners $339m $319m Broadband $309m $313m IT Products $261m $254m Voice $94m $122m IT Services $84m $91m Hi-Tech (excluding health) $35m $31m Data Centres $19m $13m Other Products (1) $68m $71m Total $1,957m $1,946m
Notes
1/ Includes mobile infrastructure, exchange building sharing arrangements and Spark Sport (in H1 FY23).
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From this we can see that IT services revenue did fall substantially, by 7.7% comparing first half FY2023 with first half FY2024. But looked at in context of over all Spark revenue it is a fall of 0.4%. That is margin of error stuff, which you can think of as being replaced by a rise in revenue at data centres. I know Spark like to crow about their high tech accomplishments, But building IT systems is really a sideline for them. Taking the bigger picture view, whatever government departments (or private enterprise) do with their build out of IT contracts, cancelled, postponed or otherwise, effectively makes no difference to the Spark result.
SNOOPY
Ultimately, not very far along at all.
There are two concepts here, that of a PAS (Patient Admin System) and that of an EMR (Electronic Medical Record). We don't really have EMR's here in NZ because we have the NHI which was world leading with a single identifier and a national database of demographic, next of kin, allergy information etc. So there hasn't been the driver to go to an EMR. But the NHI itself is slowly upgrading, adding new functionality which will allow it to function as more of an EMR. Which is ultimately what you're after. Eventually they might reach a point where they hit the limits of what they can do with it and just migrate to a proper EMR, but I would expect that to be some way off.
A PAS is a different beast, it's where you admit and discharge a patient, record their diagnoses, procedures and manage clinics, dietary requirements and so forth. Obviously some of that information would flow to an EMR, but a PAS is much more intended for day to day administration of a hospital.
So most DHB level patient records across NZ use one of two PAS software systems WebPAS and i.PM, both of which come from the same vendor https://www.dedalus.com/anz/ (but not all, Auckland and Canterbury use something else). As DHB's start to work as regions they are likely to consolidate their databases regionally where they use the same version of the same product, if only to save cost and complexity. There may also be a need to migrate some DHB's to a different product if it's more widely used in their region. Over time this might result in all the regions using the same product, and regions at least sharing the same database.
Needless to say, all this is likely to take years to accomplish and we live in hope that the health system won't be restructured again in the meantime.
Great insight there mondograss. I hadn't appreciated the difference between the PAS (Patient Admin System) and the EMR (Electronic Medical Record) systems before. Across the ditch 'TelstraHealth' is deep into software development where they sell their own in house IP as part of the 'health solution'. Nothing like that is happening at Spark, where they just adapt proprietary software (as I understand it). I am not saying this is a good or a bad thing. I am just noting the two different approaches.
I suspect what you are talking about mondograss, is what Jolie Hodson was talking about when she said that the NZ Health system would have a need to continue to digitise, be that sooner or later. Whether Spark will be a major beneficiary of that process is open to question. It could be one of the US database giants like Oracle swoop in and do the whole thing, while Spark are left to sweep up the operational crumbs. I am relaxed about which way the 'digitisation of NZ health' continues either way.
SNOOPY
The trend that Spark is most likely to be a beneficiary of is the movement to the public cloud, of which they are an operator. Data sovereignty rules have thus far prevented much being moved to public cloud so far simply because the big players internationally didn't have data centers here. Arguably Spark should have pushed harder to capitalise before that changed. But with AWS and Azure both launching NZ sites in the immediate future, they will struggle I suspect to make the big gains and more likely will just pick up bits and pieces around the edges.
Definitely there is a trend towards nationalised systems of various stripes. Medications management (charting what meds you give the patient and when) and electronic pharmacy prescribing\dispensing are two areas where there's a clear case for improvement over manual systems and they might just as well do it nationwide:
https://www.tewhatuora.govt.nz/healt...nes-programme/
This is the psuedo-EMR that's being developed:
https://www.tewhatuora.govt.nz/healt...h-information/
And you might find this interesting:
https://www.hinz.org.nz/page/eHealthNews
Couldn't resist and bought some on close today. It appears the low for the last 2 days have been on close. That gives me 6.2% yld slightly better than bank. Hopefully it goes down more on every close this week to grab some more. Anyone else buying in at this level or waiting for lower levels.
We've used Spark for internet, email and our cellphones for decades. Each month we've paid $60 for 70Gb of internet, $27 and $45 for each of our phones, and will have to pay $5 for email, or about $1600 annually.
We are in the process of shifting to Spark's subsidiary Skinny, and each 4 weeks will pay only $50 for internet, plus $17 and $17 for our phones, with $10 monthly to keep our Xtra emails, a saving of about $400 a year. We are over 65 so we could be cheeky and get 70Gb of Skinny Jump internet for $10 monthly, reducing our costs by another $530.
I can see why Spark's IT profits are dropping.
Interesting observations on the price comparisons between the Spark brand and Spark's budget 'Skinny' brand Jiggs. As a Spark shareholder, I am not pleased to hear about your savings. But I am pleased to hear you are happy to remain under the wider Spark envelope at least! I am rather puzzled by your final sentence though. It sounds like all the business you do with Spark is via their mobile platform. I say that because your internet price and data cap indicates you might be on what Spark calls 'wireless broadband', which I think comes under the mobile product group as well (I am happy to be corrected if this is not the case). But none of this has anything to do with the product grouping that is 'Spark IT'.
Here is what CEO Jolie Hodson said about 'Spark IT' at HY2024 result reporting time:
"In digital services, Spark stabilised its IT market performance, while driving new growth in data centres and high-tech solutions. Interventions to improve IT product performance delivered 3.8% growth in cloud revenue, with increased private and public cloud workloads and the launch of a new hybrid cloud service, CloudIQ. Cloud gross margin grew 7.6% as the cost base was reset, with benefits to continue flowing through in the second half. Overall IT revenues held flat at $345 million, impacted by a slowdown in service management, primarily driven by lower public sector demand."
Then on the 6th May 2024 earnings update:
"At Spark’s first half results the Company noted weaker demand in the enterprise and government market, which impacts Spark’s IT revenues. Since the half, public and private sector spending cuts have deepened, and Spark has seen significantly reduced demand in IT service management and professional services and delays to planned digital transformation projects."
Yet the update goes on to say
"At the same time, while mobile service revenue and broadband performance remains in line with expectations."
These reports would indicate to me that the predicted fall in IT Revenues has nothing to do with yours and others savvyness in finding more economical mobile plans.
SNOOPY