It’s a ritual as the end of year holidays approach. The French Telecoms Federation (FFT) publishes its study on the economics of the telecoms sector in France. The opportunity for operators to show off their laurels while seeking to defend – with supporting figures – their interests. Produced by the Arthur D. Little firm, this 2023 edition more or less repeats the diagnosis established last year.
Although investments made in telecom networks have fallen slightly – 14.6 billion euros in 2022 compared to 14.9 billion in 2021 – they remain at particularly high levels and incommensurate with those made by other operators infrastructure. Telecom networks require investments twice as high as transport networks and electricity distribution or the rail network.
This investment effort, which corresponds to nearly 20% of the operators’ turnover, has made it possible to connect more than 84% of premises to fiber. With more than 23.9 million households eligible for very high speed, France would be at the top of European countries, far ahead of Germany and the United Kingdom. If 44,300 5G sites cover the territory, adoption of very high speed mobile is slower with 9 million active 5G SIM cards.
Some of the lowest prices in Europe
Despite these heavy investments which weigh on their debt and the inflationary context, operators are maintaining very competitive prices. Not taking into account the price increases occurring in 2023, the study notes that the telecoms sector is the only one to have lowered its prices in the long term and thus restored purchasing power to the French. In ten years, the weight of telecoms has even fallen in household budgets, going from 1.7% in 2013 to 1.4% in 2022.
Here again, France would appear to be a good student by displaying prices among the lowest of the major Western countries. The average amount of a fixed “triple play” offer is 41 euros compared to 53 euros across the Channel or 54 euros in Italy. In mobile, it is 22 euros compared to 32 euros in Spain and 48 euros in Germany.
Operators are keeping prices low even though they say they are stunned by “ significantly heavier taxation » than other digital players. They are in fact subject to specific taxes such as the flat-rate tax on network companies (Ifer), i.e. 300 million euros collected for the benefit of local authorities. In total, ” operators pay 1.9 times more taxes than the average of CAC 40 companies even though they invest three times more “.
Telecom operators only receive 39% of French digital revenues
Definitely complaining, the sector denounces an imbalance in the sharing of value between operators and other digital players such as terminal manufacturers or web giants. Telecom operators only receive 39% of total revenues from the French digital ecosystem (compared to 44% in 2019), but provide 79% of investments, 66% of jobs and pay 83% of taxes.
Revenues from the global digital ecosystem increased by 9% in 2022 compared to 3% for operators. “ This weak growth in revenues of European operators explains their stock market valuation twice lower on average than that of other operators”specifies the study.
The return of the GAFAM tax
Not only do GAFAM and OTT (Over The Top) platforms monopolize most of the value but also the bandwidth. During peak hours, 80% of French traffic is generated by five internet players, namely Google, Netflix, Meta, Microsoft and Akamai. In a vicious circle, the exponential growth of digital uses forces operators to increase their capacities and “results in increasing environmental costs”.
The study concludes that “ we must change the parameters of the digital equation in France and in Europe and establish a fair contribution to the use of networks, encouraging the largest traffic transmitters to be sober. » This GAFAM or “fair share” tax which would be used to finance the networks they use is not unanimously supported within the European Union.
On the environmental level, French operators declare that they have “ of the most ambitious commitments in the sector, in Europe and globally. » The four indicators monitored since 2020 – reduction in direct carbon emissions, increased use of renewable energies, development of the sale of reconditioned phones and recycling of collected phones – are all progressing in the right direction.
While the carbon footprint of digital technology is expected to more than triple with the multiplication of uses between 2020 and 2040, the share of telecom networks in this digital footprint will fall over the same period from 10% to 7%.