The emergence of a new competitor in the market, Digi, promises to alter the Portuguese telecommunications landscape. The market has been dominated by three major players for the past decades, some of which are among the
. Together, MEO, NOS, and Vodafone provide telephone, television, and internet services to millions of consumers, while NOWO stands as the fourth-major company in the sector.
Arrival of Digi Portugal
Digi Portugal is held by Digi Communications N.V., a Romanian telecommunications group operating in Romania, Spain, and Italy. Furthermore, it is expected to launch in Belgium in 2024. The group registered a
revenue of 1.69 billion euros in 2023 and was the
leading provider by net profit in Romania. The holding owns eight
5G licenses in Portugal, evaluated at 67 million euros at the 2021 auction, when lots with multiple frequencies were sold to existent operators and new entrants in the market.
Since then, Digi has spent more than 152 million euros with
service suppliers in Portugal and had over 400
employees by the end of 2023. These mostly
worked in construction, as the company spent months installing optical fiber cables in multiple regions. This decision span from the fact that Digi and the competing providers could not agree on the price for the use of networks belonging to these.
Acquisition of NOWO
Apart from installing its own equipment, Digi made an offer of 150 million euros to acquire NOWO in 2024. By purchasing NOWO, Digi enters the market with 2.2 percent of
mobile internet subscribers, two percent of
mobile telephony connections in Portugal, and thousands of clients, which increases its capacity of immediately competing with the biggest providers. Furthermore, it inherits cable channel distribution agreements, cable and optical fiber networks, and the 5G licenses from NOWO.
State of the telecommunications market in Portugal
The telecommunications sector in the country has increased in
revenue over recent years, achieving more than 3.9 billion euros in 2023. Almost nine out of ten households in Portugal had
access to internet services and 88 percent to TV by subscription in 2022. The following year accounted for 12.6 million subscriptions to residential offers of telecommunication services, both in individualized and multiple play packages.
Mobile line telephony registered the highest penetration rate, at 180 percent, followed by mobile broadband and fixed-line telephony.
The future of the sector
While it is early to measure the definite impact that Digi will have on the Portuguese telecommunications sector, it is foreseeable that it will introduce a competitive dynamic by pressuring the other providers to lower
fees and improve quality. By having more options from which to choose, consumers might benefit from an increase in market competitiveness.
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