The Telecompaper Stock Index European Telecoms made a nice gain during first few days of 2019 of 2.3 percent, leaving the EuroStoxx 50 index (+1.3%) behind. Tiscali (Italy) and QSC (Germany) were the winners, going up 21 and 12 percent, respectively. OTE, the Greek incumbent, was up 11 percent. KCOM of the UK (-6.7%), Turk Telekom (-5.6%) and Intred, the Italian fibre company (-5.4%), had a rough start to the year, according Telecompaper.
Liberty Global (+6.7% since the end of 2018), on the brink of selling Eastern European assets to Vodafone (+3.3%), raised its stake in Belgian convergent operator Telenet (+4.3%) to over 60 percent. VodafoneZiggo, the Dutch convergent operator owned 50/50 by Liberty and Vodafone, published its reference offer for the wholesale fixed access market. MTS (+9.3%), the Russian mobile operator, started its retreat from the Uzbek market. In the satellite segment, Intelsat (+8.5%) wasn't harmed by the news that a major investor had decreased its shareholding during the second half of 2018. Iridium (+4.1%), nearing the launch of Iridium-8, was up as well.
Amazon could shake up the UK market
A British survey found that Amazon stands to take a significant portion of the market, should it launch mobile services. On brand power alone it could take 12 percent, with the perks of the Prime subscription service it could even become the market leader with 25 percent. BT (-0.3%), Telefonica (+4.0%), CK Hutchison (+0.1%) and Vodafone, as incumbent mobile players in the UK, could be hurt by any such move from Amazon.
New Year's Eve mobile data growth
The New Year's eve celebration generated a set of data points on mobile data traffic that could indicate the current level of growth of the market. The growth rates were in a fairly narrow band, mostly between 30 and 45 percent. Growth rates ranged from 22 percent at Telenet, 29 percent at Vodafone New Zealand and 30 percent at KPN to 35 percent at Orange Spain, 40 percent at Telenor Montenegro and Vodafone Germany, 45 percent at Telefonica Germany and 63 percent at Telenor Serbia.
