Europe's Big Five Telcos - the End of Empire?

Pringle Media has just published a report evaluating the financial performance of Europe's top five telcos over the past five years. Aimed at investors and policy makers, the 25-page report provides a high level overview of the profitability and spending power of Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, Vodafone, Orange and Telecom Italia.

 Some of the key findings include:

• The aggregate revenue of the top five telcos is now almost 9% lower than it was in 2010.
• In 2014, the top five telcos, on average, kept the top line flat - a marked improvement on the 2% revenue fall in 2013.
• Europe’s top five telcos’ operations generated net cash of 47 billion euros in 2014 compared with 61 billion euros in 2010 (after tax and interest payments)
• Europe’s top telcos are now spending an average of 17% of revenues on capex (excluding spectrum license fees), up from 14% in 2010.
• With an average return on capital employed (ROCE) between 2010 and 2014 of 6.5%, Europe’s big five telcos are not an attractive proposition for investors

The iPad edition of the report is available here

The Amazon Kindle edition is available here