Swisscom is evaluating options for its Italian subsidiary Fastweb that include a possible sale or partnership aimed at improving its share of the local mobile market, according to unnamed sources cited by Bloomberg. No potential partners or buyers are listed in the report, although some of the sources said Wind Tre’s parent CK Hutchison ruled out a deal following discussions held in the last couple of months.
The review follows the entry into the Italian market of low-cost challenger Iliad earlier this year, prompting an ongoing price war among the country’s three main mobile operators: Wind Tre, Telecom Italia (TIM) and Vodafone Italia. The four mobile network operators shelled out some EUR 6.5 billion for 5G spectrum earlier this month, while Fastweb was content with a single 200MHz block in the 26 GHz band, having already acquired 3.5 GHz spectrum from Tiscali.
Last week Bloomberg reported that CK Hutchison is looking into a potential sale of its mobile-phone towers in Italy to cut debt after spending EUR 2.45 billion earlier this year to acquire Veon’s 50 percent stake in Wind Tre.
