Latest Strategy News – Page 85
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Strategy & Change
O2 brand to appear in Movistar shop window
Reports indicate Movistar will trial O2-branded fixed and mobile services in its Telyco stores ahead of a potential broader rollout. News comes after loosened regional restrictions, allowing discounted O2 services in hundreds of new municipalities.
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Strategy & Change
Elsewhere in Telefónica Group: €100m spent on HQ digital refurb
Telefónica splashes out €100m on HQ digital refurb; Prosegur plots LatAm expansion with “ally” Telefónica.
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Financial & Performance
Vodafone: DT and Orange are ‘credible’ tower merger partners
Read confirms either of Vodafone’s big European rivals could end up being an ally as noise continues to increase around an “industrial merger” for Group’s Vantage Towers business.
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Vendor Voice
Interdependence Day — taking testing out of the lab
Test and assurance specialist Spirent spoke to TelcoTitans’ Vendor Voice and highlighted how the ongoing reinvention of telecoms networks is necessarily being accompanied by a reset regarding resilience. With cloud-native services and applications becoming the new standard as next-generation networks gain prominence, Spirent is urging operators to ‘take testing ...
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Venturing & Investments
Höttges: “All options open” for BT stake
Patrick Drahi free to make bigger move on BT from 11 December. French billionaire is planning to increase BT stake, reports Reuters. Sources say any move likely to involve DT. Höttges keeps cards close to chest.
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Partnerships & Alliances
BT Group appoints pensions advisory partner
XPS Pensions Group will support BT’s established in-house team.
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Strategy & Change
Telefónica preps for 2,000+ job cuts — reports
Spanish operations look set for voluntary redundancy scheme rollout, according to multiple sources. Continuation of ongoing headcount reduction programme expected to be in place by mid-2022 following union negotiations later this month.
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Venturing & Investments
Wayra buys into robotics startup
UM Autonomous Systems attracts €2.3m investment. Wayra additionally backs software solution developer Cobrainer.
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Partnerships & Alliances
Vodacom in talks over rural wireless alliance
Operator scoping out partners to share investment in thousands of extra sites across its sub-Saharan African footprint. Venture adds to wider technology and business model experimentation by Vodacom, to fund network expansion.
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M&A
INWIT continues to fill M&A kitty
Growing Italian TowerCo building up a €1bn platform for deal-making at end of its latest strategic cycle, in FY23. Expansion plans could give co-parent Vodafone another runner in European TowerCo race, beyond main vehicle Vantage Towers.
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Financial & Performance
Safaricom confident on Ethiopia despite ‘staff evacuation’
Staff safety and security a priority in Ethiopia, says Safaricom’s Peter Ndegwa, but progress remains on track despite distractions. Break-even forecasts braced for impact of conflict. Employees evacuated from Addis Ababa, according to reports.
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Partnerships & Alliances
Vodafone ‘doubles up’ in Serbia
Group’s Partner Markets federation adds Telekom Srbija to its line-up. Deal, which comes amid an attempted revamp of Partner Markets, encroaches on territory already covered by Vodafone’s long relationship with A1 Telekom Austria.
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Strategy & Change
Openreach off the table as BT drives fibre efficiency
Group ends talks on InfraCo JV as rising fibre demand and lower build costs dilute benefits of external funding. Virgin Media O2 firmly in BT sights as it aims to lock up wholesale market, and move fast on convergence. Future revenue growth anticipated, but greater efficiency and lower spending ...
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Strategy & Change
Telefónica cools on Spanish fibre sale (for now)
Vilá says domestic retail and wholesale FTTP operations “probably not reflected” in Group valuation. Repeats company line that Spanish fibre infrastructure is “strategic asset”, but doesn’t rule out monetisation in the future.
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Strategy & Change
Vodafone Technology embeds ‘build over buy’ mentality
Vodafone Global Digital Engineering head Ahmed El Sayed updates on Netcracker-backed transformation pilot in Hungary. Software engineering “the future” for Vodafone, as Group looks internally for revamped tech stack under ‘build not buy’ vision.
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Strategy & Change
TMF’s Willetts: maintaining vendor status quo “dangerous”
Speaking to TelcoTitans, Nik Willetts, CEO of industry body TM Forum, outlined his perceptions of the state of digital transformation in the telecoms sector. Procurement-led vendor management needs to evolve towards partnership for digital acceleration. Hyperscalers can remain more friend than foe as operators seek new ways to differentiate ...
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Premium
Elsewhere in Deutsche Telekom Europe: Cosmote’s FTTP update
Cosmote provides FTTP rollout update and flags new 5G R&D programme; Macedonian NatCo implementing smart city services in Skopje.
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Strategy & Change
Elsewhere in Systems Solutions: OVHcloud’s IPO
IPO to fuel Europe’s “cloud champion”; T-Sys’s Spanish unit reveals new HQ; sustainability concerns presented as commercial opportunity.
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Financial & Performance
BT highlights cost-cutting progress as Drahi waits in wings
Group confirms it has achieved its headline £1bn savings target well ahead of original March 2023 deadline. Announcement is an attempt to display strengths ahead of this week’s Q2 results and in the face of potential Altice takeover bid before the end of the year.
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Venturing & Investments
Vi can live long and prosper, insists CEO
Takkar welcomes government four-year moratorium on AGR dues and spectrum fees. Confident that relief package paves way for private investment. Vodafone rules out (again) cash injection into JV. Floor pricing issue still to be resolved.