The merger between Orange and MásMóvil is experiencing its decisive hours. This morning, the orange company itself hoped to have everything closed before the end of the year. As we know, the European Union continues to study the feasibility of the operation. However, breaking news has just broken indicating that Digi is the one chosen to receive the ‘remedies’ from the merger of Orange and MásMóvil as confirmed by the Reuters news agency.
Everything would be in place for Digi to become the fourth operator in our country behind Movistar, Orange-MásMóvil and Vodafone. The Romanian group has always applied to acquire the excess assets of the merger and now it seems that it will be a reality. In the absence of official confirmation, there are several sources that are already speaking openly about this possibility.
All this will remain Digi in Spain
The French telecommunications group Orange and its Spanish counterpart MásMóvil have chosen the Romanian Digi to buy the assets that they will have to sell after consummating their merger. The European Union has always had doubts about the operation at the level of competition, which is why it will force it to get rid of certain elements to ensure that the market continues to function in the same way. This Reuters information would have been confirmed by at least two different sources.
The merger announcement occurred in July 2022 and it has been more than a year to receive the green light from Europe. Now, it seems that everything will be resolved before 2024 and that conditions will be imposed so that the market does not go from having four to having three dominant operators. Digi will be chosen to occupy that fourth position.
Apparently, there will be several “concessions” that Orange and MásMóvil will make to the Romanian operator. On the one hand, they will give you part of their mobile network in the form of frequency spectrum. This will allow them to have their own network, although they must continue to have national roaming agreements to ensure the correct functioning of the service.
On the other hand, Reuters talks about a customer unit without going into too much detail about it. We will have to wait to find out what exactly this refers to. Third, Digi would keep one brand. Removing Orange, MásMóvil and Yoigo, the candidates could be Jazztel, Simyo, Pepephone, Virgin, Telecable, Euskaltel or R Cable (in principle).
Finally, it would be granted access to the Orange and MásMóvil infrastructure under advantageous conditions. Again, we do not have more details on this issue and we will have to wait a few weeks to know exactly the scope of the agreement signed between these two and Digi.
