Spanish regional operator Euskaltel will be using the Virgin brand to drive its national expansion strategy, confirmed its leading shareholder Zegona Communications in a statement. Euskaltel is currently Spain’s fifth largest operator, having acquired Telecable Asturias in 2017 and last year expanded from its main markets of the Basque Country and Galicia to 5 new regions (Navarre, Catalonia, Leon, Cantabria and Rioja) using its Euskaltel, R and new RACCtel+ brands. Its leading shareholder Zegona said the newly-signed trademark licensing agreement will enable Euskaltel to use the Virgin brand in 85 percent of the Spanish market where it’s not currently present.
Euskaltel’s move is no surprise, as Zegona was founded in 2015 by former Virgin Media executives Eamonn O'Hare and Robert Samuelson, who have made no secret of their ambition to expand the operator’s footprint across Spain using the Virgin brand. In an interview last year, Zegona chief executive O’Hare acknowledged that introducing the Virgin brand to Spain remained “a very viable option”, with research indicating the brand has over 75 percent consumer awareness in the country, and resonates above all with younger Spaniards.
O'Hare confirmed that the Virgin brand will coexist alongside Euskaltel's three established brands – Euskaltel, Telecable and R – which will continue to provide services in each of their respective regions. “As Euskaltel's largest shareholder, we are looking forward to working with the Virgin Group once again to create a leading national telecoms operator in Spain,” he said.
Virgin currently has over 15 million telecom customers worldwide, above all in the UK, US, France, Australia and various Spanish-speaking countries such as Mexico, Colombia and Chile. Euskaltel’s market capitalisation grew by over 30 percent in 2019 and its shares were recently added to the Ibex Medium Cap stock market index. In December it signed an expanded agreement to access Orange Spain’s mobile and fibre-optic network throughout the country.
