Last year, overall investment by European telecoms operators dropped by 0.8% compared to 2007, according to a report published yesterday (7 October) by ETNO, the association of incumbent EU telecoms operators, and produced by consulting firm IDATE.
The drop followed regular growth in previous years which reached a peak of 7.8% in 2006, the report underlines.
Investment in the five main EU telecoms markets (Germany, Spain, France, Italy and the UK) dropped by 3.6% in 2008, following an even larger fall in 2007 (-3.8%).
The economic crisis has certainly had an impact on telecoms companies, but ETNO believes that the lack of legal certainty in the EU market played a bigger role in reducing investment by big companies.
Michael Bartholomew, ETNO's director, underlined that investment is falling just as consumer demand for telecom services is growing in spite of the economic crisis.
EU telecoms operators' revenues grew by 0.8% in 2008.
"Decreasing investment is a worrying trend that EU policymakers should urgently address by providing investment incentives in the form of a regulatory regime which recognises the considerable risks in NGN roll-out," Bartholomew said.
ETNO calls on the Commission to quickly adopt a set of recommendations to spur investment in optical fibre. Debating how to best reward investors and stuck in the middle of legislative deadlock on reforming the telecoms sector, the Commission is finding itself forced to regularly postpone the adoption of its guidelines, which are now expected for 2010 (EurActiv 15/05/09).
As a consequence of the crisis, big operators predict a possible further drop in investment due to a 0.5% decrease in revenues forecast for 2009.
In a report published last March, the Commission predicted much stronger revenue growth for telecoms operators in 2008 than that announced yesterday by ETNO. The EU executive calculated 1.3% revenue growth for the sector, compared to 0.5% announced by ETNO. Brussels had also expected investment to grow in 2008, following the positive trends of previous years (EurActiv 26/03/09).
