Belgian telecoms slump over 5G auction results

Orange Belgium NV

21/06/2022 13:21

** Belgian telecoms fall after the completion of a
1.2-billion-euro ($1.27 billion) auction for 5G mobile licences
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2Y809B
    ** The Belgian telecommunications index  .BETEL  falls 5.3%
    ** Of the three main bidders, Proximus  PROX.BR  tumbles
7.6% to the bottom of the index, while Telenet  TNET.BR  and
Orange Belgium  OBEL.BR  are down 4% and 0.7%, respectively 
    ** Proximus acquired the highest overall outlay of 491
million euros in all bands, followed by Orange Belgium with 321
million and Telenet with 264 million
    ** ING says that while the auction price remained
"relatively rational" vs other European markets, it exceeded
consensus especially for Proximus
    ** The broker also flags impact on Orange Belgium due to its
higher exposure to the mobile market and smaller market cap
    ** A new market entrant could also pose a risk to the
existing players, analysts warn, as B2B reseller Citymesh Mobile
obtained 110MHz across bands for 114 million euros
    ** "There may be relatively benign intent behind this
strategy ... However, there are clearly less benign scenarios,
and we believe the future strategy of Citymesh remains a risk to
the market," Jefferies says
    ** Romanian B2C player Digi owns 49% of Citymesh, and ING
says its expertise could help Citymesh make a real push in B2C
mobile

($1 = 0.9473 euros)

 (Reporting by Dina Kartit, Olivier Cherfan and Juliette
Portala)
 ((dina.kartit@thomsonreuters.com ;
olivier.cherfan@thomsonreuters.com ;
juliette.portala@thomsonreuters.com))