The new president and CEO of OTE, Kostas Nebis, presented a strategy for the development of the Group based on five pillars, underlining at the same time that “the goal is to accelerate the commercial exploitation of the new networks.”
Nebis expressed optimism about OTE’s growth prospects, citing fiber to the home and business (FTTH) networks, 5G in mobile, television content, Information and Communications (ICT) projects and transformation of the company’s productive and operational model through digitization, as the five pillars of its strategy.
The ultimate goal is for OTE to become one of the most efficient telecommunications companies in Europe by continuing its investment program with capex maintained at the level of 600 million euros per year.
The new head of OTE also spoke about the agreements to reduce wholesale prices by up to 28% in FTTH and mutual wholesale distribution of sports channels with Nova. These two moves, as he said, “have common characteristics because they create growth prospects for the market as a whole and not just for OTE and at the same time support the digitization of the country.”
The agreement to lower wholesale prices gives providers an incentive to encourage their customers to switch from copper to fiber and is expected to be implemented in the near future. Vodafone will sign it immediately and Nova will follow.
The president and CEO of OTE described the agreement with Nova for sports content as “pioneering” for the Greek market. He emphasized that there is now no reason for any consumer to use pirated services when they can legally have the content they want at a low price.
He also referred to the sale of the subsidiary in Romania, Telekom Romania Mobile, saying that the buyers (West Network Invest S.R.L.) are in continuous cooperation with the authorities and this means that the process is moving forward.
Regarding the competition and the movements of the other providers, Nebis stated that the market continues to be demanding but at this stage he does not any intensity of competition.
