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Telefónica has achieved what seemed unlikely recently: return to your domestic market to the growth field. Upward income, a convergent ARPU triggered and close to the triple digit, customers won on all fronts, terminals and upward alarms, TV in its best form since before the pandemic, Churn at bay …
All that is already happening, but The most relevant is not only what happens in the figures, but what happens in the strategy. Spain has ceased to be a river to The Great T.but this has not yet decided to turn it into spearhead. Or that’s what is read between the lines.
During The last presentation of resultsthe first of Murtra, Emilio Gayo, newly promoted to CEO after his success at the head of the Spanish subsidiary, heard the positive data of the quarter. But Transcription of the call with investors It transmits some coldness. As if it was enough to run well to change the course of the story. As if the good moment is enough to hold it without mutating it. The needle of the action moves the balance, but also the illusion.
What Gayo did not say speak as much as what he did pronounced: Telefónica is not using Spain as a strategic trampoline. It does not position it as a test field for new business lines, nor does it present it as a showcase of what can be a large telecus, but also modern, profitable, diversified.
Not even as an operational matrix of Telefónica Tech, although in Spain this segment grows at a good pace. They are still unreottered their margins or their detailed results, it is a promise still locked in an opaque showcase. And what is not seen, hardly valued.
Spain works, but The group has not yet shown the same determination to define its course as in Latin Americawhere They opted for an immediate exit After years in red.
The context asks something else. Telefónica is in full strategic review (Gayo himself has said explicitly), And that review points in several directions:
- Consolidation in large markets (Spain, Germany, United Kingdom).
- Reinforcement of not strictly Telecos divisions (Tech, Infra).
- Industrial narrative, infrastructure, more than technological, which is the mystique that today is in the markets.
In that framework, the logical thing would be to make Spain a success case. A replicable pilot. An example of advanced convergence (average of 92 eurazos per client, rather than in countries with greater purchasing power), premium loyalty, differential content, Diversification of income beyond voice and data. But Telefónica is presenting good numbers as data, not as a vision. It is not just a matter of story, it is a matter of course.
Especially Now that Telefónica is running as a key piece in the European consolidation of the sector: The inaugural speech of the MWC crying out for her did not give the CEO of Deutsche Telekom or Vodafone or Orange, Murtra gave it. That ambition is more than Buy or fuse Digis either Vodafonesit implies proposing another way of being a teleco in this new era. And if there is one way, it can only be born from the places where Telefónica is already winning, where it does not play defensive.
If Gayo and Murtra want to make Telefónica a European champion (Financial Times He slid days after the goodbye of Pallete that this was the idea with Murtra), there will be more than financial muscle or client volume: a model, a successful narrative, a value proposition that justifies that central role in the European map of telecommunications.
Spain could be perfectly that modelbut Telefónica has not yet decided if you want to use it to inspire or just to consolidate.
And that indecision has a cost. In a sector where all companies are redefining what they want to be – which They play to be platformstechnological that They rent networkshybrids that They reinvent the service…—, who does not propose stays out. Although their kpis shine, even if their domestic market breathes again.
Nokia launched very solid terminals while Apple invented the future that would ruin it. AT&T prioritized the scale without a clear thesis and today has blurred in front of more pre -pre -rivals. Yahoo never knew what he wanted to be and The market decided on it. Telefónica is not at risk of disappearing, but if you are out of the game that matters. He is in time to decide his role, but that time to do so will not be infinite.
The most difficult is already done: Spain works again for Telefónica. What has not yet been done is decide what that means. If Telefónica wants to lead Europe, you must first demonstrate it at home.
Outstanding image | Telefónica
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