The outlook is worse than we had hoped.

The industry news remains dire and the brief outlook given here for 2007 is worse than we had hoped.

C&W has announced a sharply lower outlook for UK profitability in 2007, underlining our fears about dire performance in this division. There may also be doubts about the dividend cover from here.

The outlook remains unchanged, but the business has to pedal faster on subscriber growth to offset falling average revenue per user in order to meet expectations.

It's a savage profit warning for the UK, with numbers for 2006/07 likely to shift materially below current expectations.

It's a savage profit warning for the UK with the number for 2007 likely to shift materially below current expectations. You are probably looking at cuts of between 30 and 50 percent to UK profitability for 2007.