Telefónica and partners establish Bluevia for wholesale FTTH in Spain

Telefónica Group, Crédit Agricole Assurances, and Vauban Infrastructure Partners agreed to establish a joint venture called Bluevia Fibra to deploy and operate a FTTH network in Spain, mainly in rural areas and with limited overlap with other networks.

The consortium formed by CAA/Vauban will acquire a 45% stake in Bluevia from Telefónica España through an upfront consideration of €1,021 million in cash, valuing 100% of Bluevia at €2,500 million, which represents an implied multiple of 27.1x over the company’s proforma estimated OIBDA for 2022. Telefónica Group will retain a 55% stake in Bluevia and CAA/Vauban will retain the remaining 45%. The 55% stake owned by Group Telefónica will be held by Telefónica España and Telefónica Infra, with 30% and 25% stakes respectively.

As a neutral wholesale company, Bluevia will manage and deploy a fibre network in low populated rural areas in Spain and low overbuild with third operator’s networks. Bluevia will offer wholesale FTTH access to all telecommunication services providers. Based on an initial footprint of 3.5 million premises currently passed acquired from Telefónica España, Bluevia will increase its network to 5 million premises by 2024. 

These 3.5 million premises to be sold to Bluevia represent 13% of Telefónica’s FTTH network in Spain, whilst Telefónica España retains full ownership of the rest of the network. 

Emilio Gayo, Telefónica Spain Chairman, commented: “We are very excited about this project that will allow Telefonica España to remain the undisputed leader in fibre and will be a key lever to accelerate the deployment in rural areas as we continue to move forward in our commitment to shut down the retail copper network and to promote better connectivity in a more efficient and sustainable way”.

Telefónica Infra CEO, Guillermo Ansaldo, added: “We are very enthusiastic about the opportunity to partner with Crédit Agricole Assurances/Vauban and form a longstanding partnership together with Telefónica Spain, strengthening Telefónica Infra’s investment portfolio. With this new venture, Telefónica Infra now has FTTH vehicles in Spain, Germany and Brazil together with Telefónica’s operating units in each of those countries and in partnership with top tier institutions such as Crédit Agricole Assurances/Vauban, Allianz and CDPQ respectively”.

https://www.telefonica.com/en/communication-room/bluevia-a-neutral-ftth-wholesale-provider-in-spain-is-created/

Telefónica increases its stake in Telxius Telecom to 70%

Wednesday, February 02, 2022  Telefonica, Telxius  

Telefónica and Pontegadea are increasing their stake in Telxius Telecom, a global telecommunications infrastructure company, by acquiring a 40% stake in Telxius Telecom, previously held by KKR.With this transaction, Telefónica will increase its stake to 70% and Pontegadea will increase its stake to 30%. The acquisition is carried out for an estimated amount of EUR 215.7 million, pending, among others, the corresponding adjustments derived from the...

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Nokia expects 5G subs to hit 263 million in the Middle East and Africa

Nokia is predicting that 5G subscriptions will reach 263 million in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region by 2026. 

The 5G subscription growth will primarily be in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain. 

Additionally, subscribers in South Africa, Nigeria and North African countries will increase adoption following the release of new spectrum. This trend is triggered by the increasing use of high-bandwidth consumer applications and industrial use cases.

Mikko Lavanti, Head of Mobile Networks, Nokia MEA, said, “Globally, the pace of 5G network rollouts has surpassed 4G/LTE networks. Two years after the first LTE launch there were only 25 million subscriptions across 60 networks, while two years after the first 5G launch, 340 million subscriptions were registered across 155 networks. Similarly, in MEA, our MEA Broadband Index Report finds 40 percent year-on-year growth in 4G data traffic but a huge 350 percent year-on-year growth in 5G data traffic in 2021 alone. This trend in the region clearly indicates that there is a pressing need for the adoption and expansion of 5G networks across the region.”

https://www.nokia.com/sites/default/files/2022-07/mea-broadband-index-report-07-2022.pdf

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STACK opens 3rd data center in Milan

STACK Infrastructure opened its third data center in Milan (Siziano). 

The new facility, constructed in less than 12 months on a land parcel it acquired in 2021, brings the company’s live data center capacity in Italy to 120,000 square meters and more than 50MW of power. The new facility runs on 100% renewable energy, utilizes multiple built-in energy-saving features including photovoltaic panels and heat isolation infrastructure, and prequalifies for LEED Gold certification.

In addition to its live facilities, STACK owns more than 100,000 square metersof expansion land in Siziano capable of supporting over 80MW of total power, including a new parcel in proximity to its existing campuses acquired earlier this year.

The completion of the latest Milan facility further reinforces STACK’s positioning as a market leader in Italy and is part of STACK’s growth strategy across the EMEA region, partnering with leading hyperscale and enterprise clients to provide flexible, best-in-class data center solutions to address their evolving requirements.

“We believe Italy’s data center landscape is at the outset of a significant growth trend,” said John Eland, CEO of STACK EMEA. “Our latest investment in the region is a key component to our EMEA expansion strategy and solidifies our position as our clients’ trusted development and operational partner in the markets most essential to their own growth.”

https://www.stackinfra.com

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T-Mobile US sees its customer count rise to 110 million

T-Mobile US reported service revenues of $15.3 billion, up 6% year-over-year, including industry-leading Postpaid service revenue growth of 9% and best postpaid phone ARPU growth in more than 5 years. Net loss of $108 million and diluted (loss) per share of $(0.09) decreased year-over-year due to merger-related costs and other special expense items amounting to $1.9 billion, net of tax, or $1.52 per share.

“Our relentless focus on putting customers first delivered yet another outstanding quarter for T-Mobile with industry-leading postpaid and broadband customer growth, including our highest ever postpaid account adds in company history,” said Mike Sievert, CEO of T-Mobile. “This momentum fueled our growth strategy and allowed us to raise guidance across the board yet again -- further proof that our commitment to addressing customer pain points in this challenging macro-economic environment is working.”

Some highlights:

• Postpaid net account additions of 380 thousand increased 32 thousand year-over-year.
• Postpaid net customer additions of 1.7 million increased 380 thousand year-over-year.
• Postpaid phone net customer additions of 723 thousand increased 96 thousand year-over-year, including higher gross additions and industry-leading churn improvement. Postpaid phone churn of 0.80% improved 7 basis points year-over-year and 13 basis points sequentially.
• Prepaid net customer additions of 146 thousand increased 70 thousand year-over-year. Prepaid churn of 2.58% was the lowest in company history and improved by 4 basis points year-over-year.
• High Speed Internet net customer additions of 560 thousand were a record-high, and T-Mobile ended the quarter with more than 1.5 million High Speed Internet customers.
• Total net customer additions of 1.8 million increased 450 thousand year-over-year and the total customer count increased to a record-high of 110 million.

 https://investor.t-mobile.com/overview/default.aspx?INTNAV=fNav%3aAbout%3aInvestorRelations

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MaxLinear posts Q2 revenue of $280 million, up 36% yoy

 MaxLinear reported Q2 2022 revenue of $280.0 million, up 6% sequentially and up 36% year-over-year. GAAP gross margin was 58.7%, compared to 58.6% in the prior quarter, and 54.8% in the year-ago quarter. GAAP diluted earnings per share was $0.40, compared to diluted earnings per share of $0.42 in the prior quarter, and diluted earnings per share of $0.01 in the year-ago quarter. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share was $1.11, compared to diluted earnings per share of $1.00 in the prior quarter, and diluted earnings per share of $0.53 in the year-ago quarter.

“In the second quarter, revenue was up 6% sequentially and up 36% year-over-year, as a result of strong demand across all our product portfolio. In particular, fiber gateway access, Wi-Fi, and wireless infrastructure continue to drive solid revenue expansion. Our connectivity category was up nearly 80% year-over-year, driven by our differentiated Wi-Fi6 feature set, and we are on a firm trajectory to deliver at least $200 million of Wi-Fi revenue in 2023. We saw strong cash flow from operations of approximately $123.4 million in Q2 and non-GAAP gross margin of 62.3%. We are excited about our pending merger with Silicon Motion, the future growth opportunities of our comprehensive product portfolio, and the accelerating pace of new product launches,” commented Kishore Seendripu, Ph.D., Chairman and CEO.

MaxLinear to acquire Silicon Motion for NAND flash controllers

Thursday, May 05, 2022  MaxLinear, Mergers And Acquisitions, Silicon  

MaxLinear agreed to acquire Silicon Motion in a cash and stock transaction that values the combined company at $8 billion in enterprise value.Silicon Motion, which was founded in 1997 in Taipei, Taiwan, specializes in NAND flash controller integrated circuits for solid-state storage devices. The company claims that more NAND flash components, including current and up-coming generations of 3D flash produced by Intel, Kioxia, Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix,...

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NETGEAR reports solid demand and improving supply chain

NETGEAR reported Q2 2022 revenue of $223.2 million, a decrease of 27.7% from the comparable prior year quarter. Second quarter 2022 non-GAAP net loss per diluted share of $0.19, as compared to net income per diluted share of $0.66 in the comparable prior year quarter.

Patrick Lo, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NETGEAR, commented, “In the second quarter, we delivered both revenue and non-GAAP operating margin above the high end of our guidance range. Strong execution by our team in navigating supply chain headwinds drove the outperformance, most notably for our ProAV managed switch, super premium WiFi mesh and 5G mobile hotspot products, and, as a result, each of these categories delivered double-digit year over year growth. This improved supply picture fueled strength in our SMB business, which delivered record quarterly revenue, and sales to our service provider customers, and we expect this momentum to continue into the second half as demand remains robust and our supply situation continues to improve.”

Mr. Lo continued, “Within our CHP business, we are pleased with our progress in growing the super-premium mesh market. This once again reinforces our strategy of focusing primarily on the premium, higher margin segments of the market and targeting those consumers with the highest propensity to subscribe to our service offerings. Accordingly, we continue to make progress growing our services business, ending the quarter with 654,000 paid subscribers, and remain on track towards our end of the year target of 750,000 subscribers.”

Bryan Murray, Chief Financial Officer of NETGEAR, added, “During the second quarter of 2022, we repurchased approximately 678,000 shares of common stock for $15.0 million. Preserving strong liquidity and generating cash remain paramount as the pandemic and its related supply chain challenges continue to persist. We expect to continue to opportunistically repurchase shares in future periods.”

Mr. Murray continued, “With solid demand and improving supply, we expect SMB and the service provider channel to continue to gain momentum in the back half of the year. We expect third quarter revenue from the service provider channel will be approximately $40 million, and SMB revenue to grow sequentially. With some of our US retail customers intending to shrink their inventory positions further, we expect to continue working with them in the coming quarter to optimize their inventory levels. Together, these factors lead us to expect our third quarter net revenue to be in the range of $240 million to $255 million. While the supply picture continues to improve, we still expect to spend on airfreight to maximize our SMB revenue. As a result of these factors, our GAAP operating margin for the third quarter is expected to be in the range of (1.0)% to 0.0%, and non-GAAP operating margin is expected to be in the range of 1.5% to 2.5%. Our GAAP tax rate is expected to be approximately 22.0%, and our non-GAAP tax rate is expected to be 15.0% for the third quarter of 2022.

https://investor.netgear.com/releases/press-release-details/2022/Netgear-Reports-Second-Quarter-2022-Results/default.aspx

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