Pietro Labriola, who took over as CEO of the Tim Group —until recently, Telecom Italia— and who came to head Tim’s operation in Europe, went to the Mobile World Congress 2023 in Barcelona, Spain, and criticized the current state of the market for operators around the world.
“We are facing a perfect storm,” said the executive, citing unsustainable trends linked to falling retail prices, increased data consumption and “unprecedented” investments needed to upgrade networks. The executive also pointed out the slowdown in economic growth and the increase in interest rates, and how this entire macroeconomic scenario is putting pressure on operators’ profits.
In his speech at the event, he asked institutions and regulators to intervene so that large companies help finance the deployment of broadband and 5G and help this market to consolidate.
“The price of telecom services, in the last ten years, fell, on average, 15% in the European Union. Digital consumption grew twice. The challenging macroeconomic environment impacts costs and we have a European context in which the consumer asks for more [banda] and spend less [dinheiro]”, he said.
For Labriola, telecoms need to separate infrastructure operations from services, and that in the search for profit, the industry needs to consolidate itself in Europe, a continent where more than 120 companies compete for customers — a somewhat distant number when compared to the Europeian market , American or Chinese.
