Increasing Competition Continues to Pressure the Spanish Communications Industry

This commentary provides a brief overview of the key challenges currently faced by the Spanish communications industry, including high competitiveness, profitability erosion, vertical disintegration, and sizeable capital expenditures.

-- In Spain, the communications industry has become extremely competitive in the past few years. Indeed, the emergence of mobile virtual network operators has led to a high degree of fragmentation.
-- With most competitors offering convergence services, revenues have progressively declined over the last 10 years.
-- Mobile Network operators have made material capital investment in networks and technology, which has elevated their debt balances.

“While revenues are steadily declining, new investments are required to achieve the goal of digital transformation, and public funds are not expected to be sufficient to fund the necessary network investment to achieve this goal. Regulatory changes and increased public support may be needed to partially mitigate the imbalances in the sector”, said Laura Gutierrez, Assistant Vice President, European Corporate Finance at DBRS Morningstar.