Movistar managers have been able to read the current situation that the telecommunications market is going through to have one of the greatest growths in its deployment of antennas for 5G. The company decisively surpasses its rivals and makes a radical turn in the market situation compared to the data from the end of 2022. Now the greatest 5G capacity is in the hands of its subscribers.
When talking about 5G networks, which is where the maximum speed and capacity is offered in current mobile technology, at the end of December 2022 Orange held the leading position. At that time it had 1,162 antennas of the 3.5 GHz network, which is the important one in this context, while Movistar had 687. Vodafone, before starting 2023, occupied a worthy third position with only 534 antennas. But 2023 has been the golden year for Movistar and the tables have changed significantly.
Movistar is a leader in the deployment of 5G
Between the months of January and September of this year 2023, Telefónica has carried out the installation of 2,568 antennas that generate a significant benefit for Movistar users. For its part, Orange has only grown by a total of 576 antennas, while Vodafone has not received a significant boost either by installing only 656 new antennas. The general calculation leaves Movistar in a well-deserved leadership position and Orange in second place, which is not so negative due to the good work they had done in this regard in 2022, but which obviously shows a trend that can be improved.
However, throughout 2023 all operators have shown that their eagerness to install new 3.5 GHz frequency antennas to expand their dominance in 5G networks has been decreasing increasingly. The best example is provided by Movistar, who in the first quarter made a considerable effort by deploying 1,295 new antennas. But then the pace slowed down and, in the second quarter, it only installed 650. Finally, in the third quarter the figure also dropped a little to 623 antennas. This type of downward line has been replicated in the rest of the operators, such as Orange, which has signed the three quarters as follows: 354 new antennas, 125 and 97 respectively. Vodafone’s decline has been even more remarkable, since they started the year very strongly by installing 489 new antennas and then dropped to only 86 and 81 in the following quarters.
Telefónica has played its cards well
As we said before, Movistar has read very well the situation that the sector has gone through in 2023. The main reason for this is that Telefónica knew that its rivals were busy due to other reasons and that they could take advantage of this to gain the largest share. possible spectrum of 3.5 GHz networks. In the case of Orange, the merger process that is being carried out with MásMóvil has slowed down all the plans that were previously on the table. This has also affected MásMóvil, an operator that has decided, instead of installing new antennas, to eliminate some of those that were already active. And, in the case of Vodafone, Movistar took advantage of the company’s uncertainty during the first months of the year until it had a new CEO.
With this data in hand, the best way to see the leadership that Movistar has had is to look at the fact that, of the total number of new 3.5 GHz antennas for 5G that have been deployed in the first three quarters of the year, 67.6 % correspond to Movistar. The rest is distributed by the other two operators that we have already mentioned with percentages that do not exceed 20% in any of the cases.
These results are very important, since the 3.5 GHz band in which the antennas have been deployed is the one that allows the maximum potential of 5G to be extracted, the type of network that current users want to take advantage of at all times due to its virtues in in terms of performance and speed. For Movistar, it is key to deploy a larger network of 3.5 GHz antennas, because this will give them more support to offer the best possible 5G service to their subscribers and avoid problems or outages. For now, it is obvious that they are on the right track.
