By Elvira Pollina and Philippe LeroyBeaulieu
MILAN (Reuters) -Telecom Italia (TIM) would be pleased to see consolidation in the country’s telecoms sector, even if competitors make the first move, the head of Italy’s former phone monopoly said on Thursday.
“We welcome any kind of market consolidation that will make the market more balanced and rational,” Chief Executive Pietro Labriola told analysts during a post-results call when asked about a potential tie-up between rivals Iliad and Wind Tre.
A deal would reduce the number of mobile operators in one of Europe’s most competitive telecoms markets to three from four.
“Whoever it is that proceeds with the market consolidation in Italy will be a good sign for us,” Labriola said.
French telecoms group Iliad failed to clinch an accord with the Rome government to combine its Italian operations with those of state-backed TIM earlier this year after it had previously sought to buy Vodafone’s operations in the country in 2024. Vodafone ultimately sold its Italian operation to Swisscom’s Fastweb.
Labriola said TIM would provide the market with more details over potential benefits stemming from partnerships the company is working on with state-backed financial conglomerate Poste Italiane at the presentation of its business plan update next year.
TIM and Poste, whose business spans from mail and parcel services to insurance and broadband, announced this week a joint venture on cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) after launching a combined retail energy offer.
Meanwhile, TIM is in talks with Nvidia after the U.S.chipmaker sealed a 1 billion euro partnership with Germany’s Deutsche Telekom to develop AI cloud for industrial applications, said Elio Schiavo, the head of TIM’s enterprise division.
“We are looking at this trying to size how big is the effort, but more importantly how big is the opportunity that can be taken together,” he said.
(Reporting by Elvira Pollina and Philippe Leroy Beaulieu, editing by Gavin Jones and Keith Weir)
