Market share of postpaid mobile telephony lines in Spain 2020, by provider

The Telefónica-owned Movistar was the largest telecommunications brand in Spain as of September 2020, holding a market share of over 33 percent. The French multinational Orange was the second most popular telecommunications provider in Spain, with approximately 24 percent of the market share. The British operator Vodafone ranked third on the list, taking up nearly 23 percent of the telecommunications market share. Movistar featured a total national income of approximately 15.5 billion euros in Spain in 2019.

Movistar: the Spanish telecom giant

Movistar is a brand owned by the Spanish multinational telecommunications enterprise Telefónica, which one of the largest telephony providers in the world. Movistar operates in Spain and Latin America under that name, and as O2 in other countries such as Germany or the United Kingdom. The number of employees in the brand’s Spanish branch experienced a considerable decrease over the recent years, featuring its lowest point in 2019 at 18.1 thousand professionals. In the same year, Movistar generated around 1.18 billion euros through its mobile telephony services.

The rise of mobile communication

Mobile telephony has come a long way in a relatively short period of time. This might also be related to the fact that smartphones have become more affordable over the recent years, with the average smartphone costing around 324 U.S. dollars in 2017. The global smartphone penetration is forecast to hit over 50 percent, meaning that more than half of the world’s population owns or has owned this type of mobile device in 2019.