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

July 2, 2008 8:10 AM EDT

HERNDON, Va.--(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

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