Relevant news for telecoms stocks in West & Central Europe was limited during week 3 of 2018 as investors were awaiting the Q4 reporting season. The biggest movers ranged from Drillisch and Tele Columbus (+2.8% and +4.3%) to BT Group (-3.9%) and Altice (-2.4%).
Drillisch, to be renamed 1&1 Drillisch, may benefit from the ongoing integration with United Internet, 1&1 and 1&1 Versatel. Tele Columbus joined other TV operators in planning analogue TV switch off, freeing up bandwidth for broadband and digital TV services. BT introduced G.fast-based broadband services, but still suffers from a threat of government intervention, which may lead to the current legal separation of Openreach be mandated to convert to structural separation. Altice's woes haven't yet passed.
Weekly Investor Update - Telecoms stocks West & Central Europe - Week 3 of 2018
The largest companies in our universe, in terms of market cap, are Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone (both 17%). DT was down 0.2 percent and reported that T-Systems is considering splitting the company in two separate companies, focusing on IT and consultancy. Vodafone was down 1.5 percent without significant news.
Battered Altice lost 2.4 percent, having seen S&P lower its ratings outlook to negative. Also, a consumer survey listed its French subsidiary SRF as the service provider with the most complaints. Iliad gained 0.7 percent and appointed a CEO for its Italian business, indicating that a launch of mobile services in Italy is imminent. KPN (-0.7%) welcomed its new CEO Maximo Ibarra, who soft-launched as an advisor before taking over from Eelco Blok in April. Orange (-0.1%) wasn't affected by the loss of its long-time CEO designate, Pietrre Louette.
Liberty Global (+0.8%) was almost unchanged. The German business Unitymedia was reported to plan a broad price rise from March 1, while the listed Belgian business (+0.1%) Telenet opened up its OTT app Play Sports for non-subscribers.
