BUSINESS ANALYSISGlobal FOR TELECOMS PROFESSION ALS100OCTOBER 2014 IN ASSOCIATION WITH IN THE RED ZONE www.totaltele.com BUSINESS ANALYSIS FOR TELECOMS PROFESSIONALS NEWS & VIEWS BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY GEOGRAPHY EVENTS A round-up of some In The Red Zone: People Power: World Leader: Dates for your diary and of the major stories AT&T and Verizon lead We profile the men at The Asia-Pacific region details of the must-attend reported in our daily this year’s ranking of the helm of some of the contributes the biggest events in the telecoms news service the world’s biggest key players in this year’s share of Global 100 industry over the coming www.totaltele.com telcos by revenues Global 100 report revenues months OPINION Place your bets now as to how high Softbank can go. This year we also looked SECOND & GOAL at the impact of the Brazilian market on the Global 100. Verizon overtakes NTT to take second place in the Only one Brazilian company, Global 100, but AT&T is secure at the top for now Oi, made it into the ranking, but the country is an e love a sporting paid to those ambitions. If important source of revenue metaphor at Total AT&T gets the go-ahead to for a number of international WTelecom and the 2014 buy DirecTV, for example, it players, including Telefonica Global 100 report gives us will pull away from Verizon. and Telecom Italia. Ongoing the perfect opportunity to You could argue that speculation about market indulge. Softbank boasts the stron- consolidation will impact on It’s not often that there is gest offensive line among the all of them, whatever the a significant change at the players at the top end of the outcome. top end of the ranking of the table though. Having Meanwhile, Oi itself has world’s biggest telecoms absorbed US mobile operator the special teams on the field operators, but this edition is Sprint, the Japanese firm following the resignation of an exception. A powerful gained seven places, overtak- CEO Zeinal Bava in connec- drive from Verizon ing the likes of Vodafone, tion with the possible Communications resulted in America Movil and Orange unravelling of its merger a valuable gain in yardage, to secure seventh place in the agreement with Portugal leaving the US operator in ranking. In its 2014 annual Telecom. More on that story second position in the table report Softbank described and all the recent develop- and within sacking distance the acquisition as its “first ments in the global telecoms of its major domestic rival step towards the goal of industry in our News & and perennial Global 100 full-scale global expansion.” Views section. Read on... leader AT&T. With an annual revenue growth rate in excess of 4% in dollar terms in recent years, Verizon could be seen as a A POWERFUL DRIVE FROM credible challenger for top VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS spot, but it is more likely that RESULTED IN A VALUABLE some defensive blocking on GAIN IN YARDAGE the part of AT&T will put www.totaltele.com A round-up of the major business and finance stories of the past few months involving the world’s biggest telecos, as reported in our daily news service www.totaltele.com IN BRIEF BIG NEWS LEGENDARY INVESTMENT TELEFONIca ubER allES Softbank will invest US$250 Telefonica became Germany’s biggest mobile operator in million in US-based content October when it closed the acquisition of KPN’s E-Plus. The producer Legendary new Telefonica Deutschland, which combines O2 Germany Entertainment. and E-Plus, has 41 million mobile subscribers, putting it ahead of previous market leader T-Mobile, which had 39.3 BRAZIL AUCTION flaT million at the end of June. The acquisition “makes the The sale of 700-MHz Telefonica Group the second largest operator in Europe in spectrum in Brazil raised terms of mobile accesses and total revenue,” the Spanish telco 5.85 billion reais (€1.89bn) as declared. Telefonica’s European business certainly needed a telcos paid little more than shot in the arm. Last year the telco saw its revenues in Europe the reserve price for fall by 10.6% to €26.8 billion, with declines coming in all its frequencies and some blocks major markets, including Germany, the UK and particularly remained unsold. Spain. Meanwhile, KPN’s German business generated €3.2 billion in revenues, a 6.1% decline on the previous year. VERIZON bacKTRacK Telefonica had to jump through a series of regulatory The FCC welcomed hoops in order to win European Commission approval for the Verizon’s decision to deal. Most significantly, it agreed to sell as much as 30% of its abandon plans to impose network capacity–20% over five years and a further 10% at a speed restrictions on the later date–to telecoms reseller and mobile virtual network heaviest users of its unlim- operator (MVNO) Drillisch. That agreement effectively ited 4G mobile tariffs. creates a new facilities-based competitor in Germany, something the EU is particularly keen on; 3 Ireland reached a TELENOR MYANMAR LAUNCH similar agreement in order to get the go-ahead for its O2 Norway’s Telenor began acquisition earlier this year. offering mobile services in Telefonica holds a 62.1% stake in Telefonica Deutschland, Mandalay, becoming the KPN has 20.5% and the remainder is in free float. second foreign player to launch in Myanmar. Rival Ooredoo has signed up over TELEFONIca IS THE SECOND laRGEST 1 million customers. OPERATOR IN EUROPE 4 www.totaltele.com IN BRIEF FasTWEB ON THE blOCK bava’S DEPARTURE Swisscom is reportedly casTS OI/PORTugal working on a deal to sell TELECOM MERGER Italy’s Fastweb to Vodafone INTO DOubT for €4 billion-€5 billion. NII GOES CHAPTER 11 PROFILE NII Holdings, owner of several Latin American bava walKS OUT mobile operators, filed for Zeinal Bava resigned as CEO of Brazilian telecoms operator bankruptcy protection after Oi after its ongoing merger with Portugal Telecom was failing to stem customer thrown into doubt. The announcement came after media losses. reports claimed that French cableco Altice is planning to make an offer for Portugal Telecom’s assets, a move that NEW PTT Play would naturally require the merger process, which has begun Pacific DataVision plans to but is not yet complete, to be unwound. Oi responded by launch a new push-to-talk admitting that it is considering the sale of assets but said it service in the US, having has not yet made a decision on Portugal Telecom. acquired 900-MHz spectrum Bava, highighted as a key industry player in last year’s from Sprint. Global 100 report, was the driving force behind the merger agreement announced in October 2013. Financial irregulari- GREATLAND CONNECTIONS ties that led to the resignation of Portugal Telecom CEO Charter Communications Henrique Granadeiro threatened to derail the deal earlier and Comcast announced that this year, but the telcos renegotiated the terms and insisted the company spun out of they were committed to bringing it to completion. Bava’s their forthcoming merger departure naturally casts that into serious doubt. will be known as GreatLand Bava, a former Portugal Telecom chief executive, has only Connections. been at the helm of Oi since mid-2013. He was due to take on the CEO role at the merged entity. NEW MOBILE OP IN HUNgaRY The Hungarian government HEADING FOR THE EXIT raised 130.6 billion forints (€418m) from the sale of BAKSAAS TO GO NEELIE SIGNS Off 800-MHz and 2.6-GHz Jon Fredrik Baksaas will leave his Outgoing European digital agenda spectrum. The winners post as chief executive of Telenor at commissioner Neelie Kroes de- included cableco Digi. the end of next year. The Norwegian livered her final speech to telcos, telco has yet to name a succesor. urging them to change their ways and embrace the single market. OfcOM SEEKS NEW LEADER Ed Richards resigned as chief ex- HRIbaR DITCHES EIRCOM 1.25 BN smaRTPHONE ecutive of UK regulator Ofcom after Eircom chief executive Herb Hribar SHIPMENTS eight years in the role. He will leave has stepped down after two years PREDICTED IN 2014, at the end of the year and Ofcom in the job. CFO Richard Moat will UP 24% ON 2013 aims to have found a replacement serve as acting CEO until the Irish (IDC) by early 2015. telco names a replacement. 5 www.totaltele.com BIG NEws all EYES ON MEXICO There is change afoot in Mexico. Carlos Slim in October confirmed that the fixed and mobile assets to be sold by America Movil will cover both the country’s east and west coasts and its border with the US. The telco is working with potential buyers, he said, but would not be drawn on whether or not they include AT&T. The US telco recently admitted it has its eye on opportunities south of the border. The new entrant, whatever its identity, will find itself in a market in a state of flux. Ricardo Salinas in September paid Televisa $717 million for the 50% of Iusacell he does not already own and is now seeking an equity partner for the telco, Mexico’s third-largest mobile operator. Number two player Telefonica, which admitted in July that it was taking part in negotiations in Mexico, has gone quiet. Meanwhile, the MVNO market is hotting up. Maz Tiempo, which piggybacks on Telefonica’s network, launched in August, two months after Virgin Mobile. THE NEW ENTRANT WIll FIND ITSElf IN A maRKET IN A STATE OF flux BIG NAMES MAKING A COMEBACK Telecoms veteran Sol Trujillo could be about to return to the industry if rumours that he is working on a plan to raise around €7.5 billion to fund the acquisition of a stake in Telecom Italia prove to be true.