By T. Igoumenidi
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Almost a decade after a full deregulation of Greece’s once closed telecoms and telephony sector finds only a handful of providers remaining, with all eyes now on developments concerning listed Forthnet and the fate of Cyta’s subsidiary in Greece – the fourth and fifth (last-place) providers in terms of subscribers.
In terms of the former, Greek lenders, led by Piraeus Bank, now control roughly one-third of Forthnet’s share capital, and essentially hold the troubled company’s fate in their hands.
At the same time, Vodafone appears to have a clear advantage over Wind in the purchase of Cyta Hellas.
The looming sale of Cyta to another rival in the Greek market means that major telecommunications providers in Greece will drop to four (Cosmote/OTE, Vodafone, Wind and Forthnet), only a few years after a dozen providers emerged with the full deregulation of the sector in 2007.
The four providers, excluding previously state-controlled Cosmote/OTE, today hold 45 percent of Greece’s telephone subscribers’ bloc, or 2.11 million connections in a country of roughly 11 million people. That figure is only 25,000 higher than in late 2016.
OTE, on its part, still holds a dominant position: 2.628 million telephone connections.
Vodafone is second with roughly 694,000 landline connections (36K added last year), followed by Wind with approximately 592,000 connections (34K added last year).
Forthnet retains 548,000 telephone subscribers, although it lost 16K in 2017.
Finally, Cyta Hellas, which is officially on the sale block, has some 276,000 subscribers, losing roughly 28K in 2017.
