The strategic implications of European Union expansion for mobile telecommunications companies

Abstract

Purpose

The European Union (EU) has recently been significantly enlarged with the addition of ten countries. This was expected to induce telecommunications operators in the original EU15 to invest heavily in operators in the accession countries. This paper seeks to analyse the extent to which this has occurred in practice.

Design/methodology/approach

The pattern of licence ownership and subscriber numbers in the EU25 is set out for 30 June 2004. The market position of eight operators likely to have played a role in investing in accession countries is examined and the level of concentration in every market is calculated. A number of case studies of operators are generated and an overall conclusion reached as to whether accession has indeed evinced a strategic response, or is likely to do so during 2005.

Findings

The results show that there has been no uniform response by operators in the EU15 to the onset of accession, and rather less investment overall than had been anticipated. This is explained by a variety of factors such as lack of investments providing majority control, financial constraints and the desire to cluster investments.

Originality/value

This paper provides a timely analysis, eight months on from accession, of how it is likely to affect individual, important industrial sectors within the now EU25.

Citation

Curwen, P. and Whalley, J. (2005), "The strategic implications of European Union expansion for mobile telecommunications companies", European Business Review, Vol. 17 No. 6, pp. 497-517. https://doi.org/10.1108/09555340510630545