- Pan-European: Orange (-2.6%), SES (-9.5%)
- Western European: KPN (-4.9%), Proximus (-3.7%), Orange Belgium (+5.9%)
- Northern European: Telenor (-1.4%), NextGenTel (+4.2%)
- Eastern European: Orange Poland (-2.8%), Telekom Slovenije (-3.3%), MTS (-6.3%), Netia (-1.1%)
- Southern European: Turkcell (+6.2%)
5G
The next generation wireless technology, 5G, was weighing on several stocks. In Italy, questions were asked about license extensions for players including Tiscali (-31%) and Go Internet (-1.1%). Tiscali also suffered from funding issues, as being discussed with two large shareholders. Deutsche Telekom (-3.1%) entered into an agreement with SK Telekom from South Korea, involving cross investments in each other's subsidiaries. The C-Band Alliance amended its proposal to the FCC, expanding the amount of spectrum available for 5G to 200 MHz. The alliance, which includes Intelsat (-17%), SES (-9.5%) and Eutelsat (-7.0%), still isn't in the clear on whether the FCC will actually ask them to vacate spectrum for 5G. Finally, the Czech government is considering keeping 700 MHz spectrum in state hands to create a single national operator for wholesale 5G services.
YTD
In the year-to-date view, the constituents of our index have performances ranging from +745 percent for Intelsat to -76 percent for Tiscali, touching a new low. The majority of the shares are in negative territory. Scoring positively year-to-date are Sky (+71%) and Com Hem (+15%), due for a stock exchange exit when their takeovers by Comcast and Tele2 close. Other shares doing well include Altice Europe (+60%, off its high of +172%), MegaFon (+14%) and Rostelekom (+9.2%) from Russia, the Nordic stocks DNA (+18%), Telia (+8.3%) and Elisa (+4.8%), as well as several more satellite stocks.
