Transcript
Pablo Tomasi: Welcome back to the Telco Drift a podcast exploring tech telecoms and other sci -fi stories. So it's been quite some times, you know, I was busy with my you know real work and then i went on holidays but most importantly because the last episode was such a resounding success.
Pablo Tomasi: with one of my favorite analysts. um it was difficult for me to find something that was as good as the last thing that i did But you know we have to continue going And... I've been searching for different news recently to...
Pablo Tomasi: maybe bring the podcast a little bit closer to its title so How are telcos transforming themselves? and when I was looking at the At the news of course there were a lot of new
Pablo Tomasi: around the tech world. um Apple has a new color fantastic amazing Meta has new glasses great But then looking a little bit more specifically on telcos. There's been an example.
Pablo Tomasi: some telcos again working together a little bit better or trying to work together a little bit better And that was DT Orange Vodafone and Telefonica. Exploring a joint Consortium to bid the forum EU satellite spectrum for day -to -day So that is quite interesting. We've seen a trend that we have discussed before Something else interesting that that... caught my attention was Orange.
Pablo Tomasi: and Telesat ah working for the first European gateway for Telesat Lightspeed constellation. This is interesting because it's bringing a little bit closer to the topic of today's episode which is how telcos are transforming themselves but also the importance of sovereignty and government into this transformation.
Pablo Tomasi: And it all started for me. when I saw a recent announcement all of them. Poste Mobili acquiring TIM And... And that.
Pablo Tomasi: for me was quite a unique announcement because you don't see something similar happening very often and the whole episode is built around okay are there any other similar examples that i can discuss with you or is this You're one in a lifetime.
Pablo Tomasi: sort of event. And around this idea of telco transforming themselves, I'm gonna have a two episode mini -series. But but like ah let's get started. so for those are not really familiar with the market Italian posts.
Pablo Tomasi: is a smaller fish compared to Tim. So this is quite an unusual However, if we take a step step back and we... look at it to companies so Team.
Pablo Tomasi: which is then common in Italy. has been active in a very price competitive market. Which... from the point of view the talk is terrible from the point of view the consumer it's amazing because you get some really good deals but of course when you look at you know telcos performance has been tough and then historically the telco had a lot of high debt
Pablo Tomasi: is try different things to set scores in the right direction so divesting his fixed network assets but the scale in the mark hasn't been so sufficient.
Pablo Tomasi: At the same time the company has had to continue to invest heavily. despite mother's growth And... the the company hasn't really been able to have a steady course so there's been a lot of drama recently within the company in terms of ownership possible takeover so on and so forth When we look at Poste Italiane Uh, they... The company has had a completely different story.
Pablo Tomasi: So first of all, it has a strong financial execution. and the end of 2025. with 13 .1 billion euros in revenues. and 2 .2 billion euros of net profit.
Pablo Tomasi: and the momentum seems to continue this year as well. Now, what Poste has been really good at doing was diversify beyond is traditional postal business And in fact, it's creating this idea of a platform. physical and digital if you want and it what it what it works on.
Pablo Tomasi: is financial services, insurance, payment and logistics and all these areas are contributing. to the to the success of the company And now...
Pablo Tomasi: With the position of team is looking to move more steadily into the the telecoms business and poste by the way was already an MVNO So it has already started its journey into the telecoms business. But now with TIM there is this opportunity to of course accelerate, drive synergies and then...
Pablo Tomasi: go deeper into telecoms and also into energy. because in Italy telecoms and energy are very tied together. so why this is interesting first of all Poste there.
Pablo Tomasi: has been able to reinvent itself. A lot of telcos. have really struggled to do that and this is already inspiring now the other point is relevant. it says past there is owned by the state.
Pablo Tomasi: and this is a tricky bit because now effectively TIM the incumbent. is becoming state owned again. So... We will see how that will play out um I live in Italy, of course.
Pablo Tomasi: and what I'm thinking about for instance. uh our trains. I'm really not happy about. what is happening there in terms of the state ownership so i wouldn't want something similar in terms of performance and services to happen too.
Pablo Tomasi: Telco word as well but let's not worry about that for now effectively one look at this two to companies they they need to you know truly merge they need to get clear synergies uh and they need to in bringing this idea of sort of digital digital and fiscal platform. across a lot of different segments.
Pablo Tomasi: to to really be able to cross -pollinate everything and including now the telecom side of it so it's not something easy to do we will see how how that will evolve.
Pablo Tomasi: But it is quite ah quite exciting to see. potentially a new type of telco. being created. and And I'm saying these because...
Pablo Tomasi: I try to look at similar examples and i couldn't really find anything there is is a good match for this for what is happening now Of course.
Pablo Tomasi: if you have an example just drop it in the comments and send me a message I may have skipped something. We'll see how this company will will behave. now something as a just you know pop to mind because team homes TIM brazil My understanding is that for now that subsidiary will continue to performance perform as usual however I do expect it to be seen as the cash cow to really get their cash uh input
Pablo Tomasi: while the new play in the Italian market will be developed. So again, let's let's wait and see. but ah first of all If you take a step back Poste
Pablo Tomasi: Initially started to join telecoms as an MVNO But that's... That's unique in a sense. An MVNO swimming upstream and buying The MNO doesn't really happen often.
Pablo Tomasi: Usually it happens the other way around so you have MNOs. that see the success of MVNOs and then the decide to acquire couple of examples Vodafone acquisition of TracFone phone tests was like a big big deal like six point something billions and 21 million subscribers.
Pablo Tomasi: and the rationale of course was like scale and getting into specific segments Yeah. T -Mobile acquired Mint Mobile and again it's about acquiring that that specific brand and acquire its market segment.
Pablo Tomasi: um MassMovil i think mass mobile by the way now is uh been rebranded fully to Orange but you know at the time it acquired Pepephone it a acquired a couple of specific telco players including paperphone which was an enviador and again the bottom line idea is to acquire.
Pablo Tomasi: access and numbers of course within very specific parts of the marker. And this is something that is completely different. So again... couldn't honestly this doesn't really There's really a lot align happening in Italy.
Pablo Tomasi: But then I thought, okay, let's see if I found something as similar as when it comes to platform plays or financial services. and the reality is that when when you think okay you are a company that does some financial services or like insurance mobile bank whatever If you're a telco doing that,
Pablo Tomasi: You tend to be a telco that is active in emerging market. so you have example from orange with orange money safaricom with m -pesa Airtel Africa. Telenor in Pakistan as well.
Pablo Tomasi: Telkom Indonesia, GlobeTelecom so a lot of different telcos have pushed into financial services. But as I said, that tends to be in emerging market.
Pablo Tomasi: and the reason for that is that uh the banking industry is less developing in those emerging markets so there's a lot of people that do not have access to the traditional banking services, and therefore the telco can step in and take the role. The SIM can become a way to identify some of their lottos.
Pablo Tomasi: you know small limited value loans and payment via effectively yeah the the the telco enabled by the telco, I should probably say.
Pablo Tomasi: and again very different because italy is not a developing market and yes we do have a lot of issues and sometimes I do think we are stuck in the Middle Ages, but we don't fit that profile.
Pablo Tomasi: So again... Italy example remains unique. There is one exception though that i think is not an apple for apple comparison but I think if it were...
Pablo Tomasi: working in Poste I will look at this company that is Rakuten Because Rakuten... uh mobile is is part of that much bolder ecosystem, right? And it has...
Pablo Tomasi: with a card, bank, securities, payments. but it's more than that it has e -commerce and it has you know the logistics to deliver on that and it has of course the you know telco services So potentially there could be an example of how to drive such a platform player in a mature market.
Pablo Tomasi: Granted. Japan and Italy are completely opposite on everything. But maybe there is some... um inspiration that could be ah could be derived from that. the other big if you want but that poste has done is is moving into the logistics side of things now here when i look at companies when i look at telcos most of the logistics Bets are more on the unmarket side of things.
Pablo Tomasi: and so you have for instance Singtel providing technology services and smart cities and logistics like solution And... same for KT in South Korea.
Pablo Tomasi: and Softbank. of course exposure to logistics technology, autonomous delivery robotics as part of the broader ecosystem and portfolio that it operates. Um,
Pablo Tomasi: so very different i think from from the way that post is trying to structure this business. leaves me again only with Rakuten. because of the e -commerce logistics due to to supporting fulfillment and delivery of the marketplace.
Pablo Tomasi: he seems the only one that could be inspiration um I don't know let me know If I miss... some any other company that is doing something similar The bottom line...
Pablo Tomasi: is that this could be the first example of a broader trend of new telcos if you want. will the take really remain the same? i i I'm skeptical whether that is going to be the case or whether we're going to see more and more out out of the box.
Pablo Tomasi: companies developing. but now we move them Amen. probably to the core of this episode which is about the idea that Telco is becoming a game of diplomacy. a game of control and sovereignty And...
Pablo Tomasi: this aligns quite well with actually do what i'm reading right now which is brave new world so highly recommended If you haven't read it, just, you know. it's not it's not too long of a book and it's that sort of dystopian future where there is a is soft control let's put it this way of how people behave um i'm not to go gonna spoil anything else but but have a look at it and the reason why why i think this is relevant is because
Pablo Tomasi: that there is a little bit of a push and pull in terms of state ownership and control of critical telcos. and a few few years back you will see from Europe telcos expanding and...
Pablo Tomasi: pushing their arms outside. Avam. of the region and now you see the opposite so you see telcos from outside in Europe trying to get hold and possibly ownership of European telcos.
Pablo Tomasi: and a couple of examples are STC uh which increases stake in Telefónica Spain, I think up to 9 .9%. and that kind of prompted Spanish government, Spain.
Pablo Tomasi: to Step up. its ownership of the of the company because Telefónica was seen as a strategic league. critical company for the country.
Pablo Tomasi: Another example of telcos Moving in. it's auto -european there because it had Bharti global uh BT so again Bharti i believe now is is probably the larger shareholder In BT
Pablo Tomasi: and it's like again an interesting move We also have Etisalat. acquiring assets across that was us of course Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia and Slovakia.
Pablo Tomasi: And of course we have American Movil with a percentage in BT. but also owning A1 so previous Telekom Austria and So on one side you see uh outsider outsider influence if you want into this critical companies but at the same time you see some resistance in the case of spain or when we look at France Um,
Pablo Tomasi: the the state has taken a higher stake. into Eutelsat as part of the latest recapitalization we are moving more into satellite but you know telco satellites it's all the same and then the iris square constellation also very big in sovereignty very big in control an india is uh is showing something different but on the same line so the indian government increased ownership of Vodafone idea 248 .99 %
Pablo Tomasi: according to AI. and and was and he did so by converting outstanding spectrum related dues into equity. So... just to try to close this off by saying something smart or something that can be useful a heavier presence of the state.
Pablo Tomasi: and that may be played directly or indirectly as we've seen in all these companies. I think will significantly affect the market going forward. um possibly will make some opportunities. key priorities for the telcos.
Pablo Tomasi: possibly slow down a little bit the piece of innovation but at the same time opening some doors in terms of that sort of big ah relevant critical infrastructure business and needs that the governments have and i think that as we as we look forward we are going more and more into governments wanting to take control.
Pablo Tomasi: or having a say here. larger and larger say into what telcos are doing. So let me know. whether that make sense for you or not what i'm going to for fetched to dystopian future But either way.
Pablo Tomasi: um drop a comment send me a message and of course if you think there is anyone that you know that could be a good fit for the for the podcast either because they really love telcos or because we love sci -fi by all means let me know and I will try to...
Pablo Tomasi: to get the sorted So thanks again for listening and talk to you next time.
