The Big Question: ¿hay margen de crecimiento para las telecomunicaciones europeas?
Mantener bajos los precios al consumidor no es la única prioridad cuando las empresas necesitan escalar para seguir siendo competitivas, afirmó la CEO de Orange, Christel Heydemann.
MÁS INFORMACIÓN : http://es.euronews.com/2025/12/29/the-big-question-hay-margen-de-crecimiento-para-las-telecomunicaciones-europeas
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00:00El tráfico sigue a 10 a 30% cada año en nuestras redes sociales, pero los ingresos no aumentan.
00:07Es una transacción compleja porque hay muchos millones de clientes que están en el mercado.
00:17Bienvenidos a The Big Question, la serie de Euronews, donde nos sentimos con algunos de los más grandes nombres en la industria.
00:25Hola, soy Elena Butler y hoy estoy acompañado por Cristal Hedeman, CEO de Orange.
00:32Cristal, muchas gracias por estar aquí con nosotros.
00:35Orange ha sido ranked por la 14ª vez el número uno de las nombres de teléfono en Francia.
00:42¿Qué es la clave a tu suceso?
00:44We've been investing, investing and investing to please customers to make sure we would meet, I mean, both coverage targets,
00:52but as well keep the increase of traffic that we continue to see in our networks and then covering railways, covering roads, covering remote areas.
01:02It's a lot of detailed work that our customers don't notice in the end.
01:05You just see whether on or off you get the right network and you get the quality of calls, videos, streaming and everything.
01:12You recently became the first European operators to surpass 10 million fibre customers.
01:18That was in France.
01:20Why are people choosing Orange?
01:22Well, we've been investing in fibre for already more than 15 years.
01:27And we are indeed the first operator to reach that 10 million milestone in one country.
01:33That's in France.
01:33And it's true that today in France, we have 93% of homes connectable through fibre, thanks to our investments, not just us.
01:40Others have invested as well.
01:42And fibre is something that has huge potential to continue to be upgraded.
01:53Telecoms is quite a saturated industry.
01:55Is that something that worries you?
01:56The telecom industry, because of demography, because of saturation, because of equipment, is now a slow growth market in volume.
02:06And then the ability to keep on increasing value depends on our ability to innovate, to provide more services to our customers.
02:14And it's true that if we compare to other continents, we don't have the growth that we used to have.
02:20But despite that, we need to continue to invest massively on infrastructure because the traffic continues to grow.
02:2610 to 30% every year on our networks.
02:29People consume more videos, artificial intelligence.
02:32It starts to grow in our networks as well.
02:35But revenues are not increasing, and the cost of maintaining our networks because of cybersecurity, because of resilience to extreme events, keeps on increasing.
02:45And that's why we believe that consolidation is a must in that environment.
02:50You recently made a joint bid with Brigg and Free for SFR.
02:56SFR quite quickly rejected that bid.
02:59Why do you think that was?
03:00We're talking about multi-billion, I mean, the non-binding offer was 17 billion.
03:06It's still preliminary.
03:07That means we're talking about a lot of money, so you can expect a lot of discussion to happen.
03:12And it's a complex transaction because many millions of customers that are at stake.
03:17France is our first country for Orange, so this transaction is very important for us.
03:22This type of transaction is not something that can last forever in terms of negotiation
03:26because the value at stake is important and the dynamic is important.
03:31So that's why it's something that we are clearly engaged in trying to conclude.
03:37But there's no guarantee that this non-binding offer will go to an end.
03:40Critics would say that less competition in the French market could mean that prices will go up and that services will deteriorate.
03:48Do you think that is a fair criticism?
03:51The reality is that we concluded a transaction in Spain two years ago, combining Orange and MassMovil to create a leader in Spain.
03:59And we went through the exact same questions from antitrust authorities, from the DG competition in Brussels.
04:05We explained that, first of all, the market dynamic is very different from what it was five to ten years ago
04:11because 4G has been rolled out, people, consumers are equipped, and the reality is that three players competing in a flat to small positive market
04:20is probably as competitive, if not more, than four players or five players competing in a market where there's three, four, five percent growth.
04:29There's been a call from many companies to revise merger guidelines.
04:33Competition is good for innovation.
04:35Competition is good for consumers.
04:37But the reality is that we've probably reached the limit of just looking at price for consumers.
04:42We really need to take into account the ability for companies to invest in a world that's moving very fast
04:48and where, in our markets, we have to deal with big companies.
04:53The European Commission is working on the Digital Networks Act.
04:57Could you give us a brief resume and tell us your thoughts on the proposal so far?
05:01Today we have a very heavy regulation for telecom.
05:04That is somehow dated from the time when we had monopoly in every country and we decided to open the telecom industry to competition.
05:14And so we need to update the regulation to take into account the fact that we're talking now about fiber networks,
05:21we're talking about 5G networks.
05:23So the Digital Networks Act, it's really about modernizing, it's an analysis from the Commission,
05:29that the investment in telecom infrastructure is not at the level required to provide 5G and fiber to all European citizens by 2030.
05:38We estimate that the gap of investment, given the market structure today,
05:42is 200 billion euros of investment that is not going to come from telecom operators
05:48unless we provide safer and more incentives to invest in infrastructure.
05:53Also, there has been resistance to the DNA from certain member states who argue that consolidation isn't necessarily the best way forward
06:01and they're clearly resisting greater intervention from Brussels.
06:05What would be your message to these governments?
06:09There's one thing for sure, is that the reality of the markets in every country in Europe, there's huge difference.
06:16I mean, that being said, the need to modernize regulation, to adapt to a new framework,
06:21this is something that's true across countries.
06:23So I think we need to find the right balance and we're not saying that it's going to be one size fits all.
06:28What we're saying is that it's okay to regulate and to fix things when they don't work.
06:33And you've suggested that greater telecoms consolidation is required so that Europe can compete with the US and China.
06:41Can you explain that a little bit more for me?
06:43In the US, you have three national mobile operators.
06:47With the size of the US, that means they have on average more than 100 million customers themselves.
06:53In China, they also have three operators and the largest operator in China has 1 billion customers.
07:00In average, in Europe, a single operator has 5 million customers.
07:04We have 27 markets in Europe and the single market, even though it's Germany or France, the largest, or Spain, largest economy in Europe,
07:14they're still much smaller than the US or China.
07:16The fixed cost to maintain a network, to upgrade, is such that the more mobile customers you have, the lower the cost per customer is.
07:25That's why we see a lot of network sharing.
07:27Also, this ability to continue to cope, to make sure that not only we can provide the coverage
07:33and the next generation connectivity that's required for European citizens,
07:38but it's also making sure we can cope with the needs to protect and secure those infrastructures.
07:44I think that's a good point to leave it there.
07:46Thank you so much, Crystal, for sharing your insights on the big question.
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