Telefonica plans to strengthen the operations it already owns rather than expanding beyond its current footprint, group chairman and CEO Cesar Alierta told the Wall Street Journal. "Some investors believe that we are going to keep on buying things, but we are not," he said. The group will concentrate on organic growth and increasing revenue from the internet data traffic market. Telefonica is present in 25 countries and has 277.7 million clients worldwide, compared to 68.2 million in 2000. Its annual revenue has doubled in ten years to EUR 57 billion, of which 65 percent is generated outside Spain. Its latest expansion was the purchase of Portugal Telecom's 30 percent stake in Brazilian mobile operator Vivo for EUR 7.5 billion. Telefonica will also increase its 8 percent stake of China Unicom to 10 percent by the end of the year. In explaining why Telefonica wants to focus on the countries where it currently operates, Alierta said that the group did not have middle management able to run operations in sub-Saharan Africa, for example. He expects increased consolidation in Europe, which has over 150 operators, compared to more than a dozen in the US and only four in China, but he added "I don't see us doing anything else in Europe".
