The approval of the 4 to 3 Telefonica E-Plus merger with ineffective MVNO remedies made Germany the least competitive market in EU28
February 2016
- The gap between Denmark a 4-MNO competitive market and Germany a 3-MNO tight oligopoly is widening. Danish average gigabyte prices were 10 times lower than German prices by February 2016 - up from 4 times lower in April 2015
- The divergence in gigabyte prices has led to a decoupling of mobile data consumption growth: Danish operators’ data traffic growth follows an exponential trajectory while the data traffic growth on German networks is constrained to a linear path
- The German mobile market is the market with the highest tight oligopoly index of 90% among EU28. The German mobile market is a tight oligopoly with non-competitive outcome characterized by excessive mobile internet access prices and very restrictive gigabyte caps (artificial capacity scarcity)
- MVNOs cannot become effective competitors - They cannot substitute the supply of competitively priced GBs (capacity) offered by no.4 MNOs
- Drillisch, the so called upfront 'capacity' in essence retail-minus MVNO cannot disrupt the artificial capacity scarcity and excessive gigabyte prices in the consolidated German mobile market
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2016
Germany
KPN
Telefonica
