'Please unleash us,' Europe's telcos urge regulators as industry bangs drum for more mega-deals

cnbc.com:

BARCELONA — Europe's telecommunication firms are ramping up calls for more industry consolidation to help the region compete more effectively with superpowers like the U.S. and China on key technologies like 5G and artificial intelligence.

Last week at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) trade show in Barcelona, CEOs of several telecoms firms called on regulators to make it easier for them to combine their operations with other businesses and reduce the overall number of carriers operating across the continent.

Currently, there are numerous telco players operating in multiple EU countries and non-EU members such as the U.K. However, telco chiefs told CNBC this situation is untenable, as they're unable to compete effectively when it comes to price and network quality.

«If we're going to invest in technology, in deep know-how, and bring drastic change, positive drastic change in Europe — like other large technological companies have done in the U.S. or we're seeing today in China — we need scale,» Marc Murtra, CEO of Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica, told CNBC's Karen Tso in an interview.

«To be able to get scale, we need to consolidate a fragmented market like the telecoms market in Europe,» Murtra added. «And for that, we need a regulation that allows us to consolidate. So what we do ask is: please unleash us. Let us gain scale. Let us invest in technology and bring upon productive change.»

Christel Heydemann, CEO of French carrier Orange, said that while some mega-deal activity is starting to gather pace in Europe, more needs to be done to guarantee the continent's competitiveness on the world stage.

Last year, Orange closed a deal to merge its Spanish operations with local mobile network provider Masmovil. Meanwhile, more