Iliad continues to advance its pawns to impose itself on the Italian telecom market. After an initial offensive on the Italian mobile market in 2016, the parent company of Free has already begun to strengthen its presence by recently launching a fixed offer, once again betting on lower prices to win over new customers.
That’s not all: the Bloomberg agency reports that Iliad has confirmed that it has made an offer for Vodafone’s Italian activities. The management of the holding company confirmed the information even though other echoes from the Italian press report ongoing discussions between the two groups to reach an agreement which would allow them to merge their respective subsidiaries in Italy.
Such a marriage would come as no surprise, given that the management of Vodafone recently said it was open to opportunities to sell its subsidiaries in Italy, Spain and Portugal, under pressure from the activist fund Cevian Capital. Still, a merger between the Italian branches of Free and Vodafone would lead to a consolidation of the market, going from four players to three thanks to this operation (the competitors of Free and Vodafone being TIM and WindTre).
A new direction for Free?
It would bring Free’s mobile customer portfolio to more than 11 million, while the Italian branch of operator Iliad now has 8.5. The operation would also allow Free to fill its workforce of fixed customers with three million additional subscribers, even though the operator has just marketed its own fixed offers.
The operator has just launched a non-binding mobile and fixed plan at the rate of 15.99 euros per month for current Iliad subscribers in Italy, and 23.99 euros for others. At stake ? “An ultra-fast fiber optic connection at an affordable price”, promised the general manager of Iliad in Italy, Benedetto Levi, during the presentation of this new offer, referring to a “maximum speed of up to 5 Gb/s”.
As a reminder, the turnover recorded by Free Italia in the third quarter of 2021 amounted to 207 million euros, an increase of 22.1% over the first nine months of the year.