Once upon a time, Vodafone was the biggest beast in the global telecoms jungle – indeed, it was also the UK’s biggest company by stock market value around the turn of the century. Now, says its new chief executive, it is “sub scale” in its home market of the UK and unable to compete effectively. As an implied confession of how Vodafone has been outflanked by rivals over the years, it was quite something.
It is, though, the basis on which Margherita Della Valle invited regulators to bless a UK merger with CK Hutchison-owned Three and rip up their historic stance that four national mobile operators is the minimum required to guarantee healthy competition. The UK, argued Della Valle, has already ceased to be a proper four-player market. BT-owned EE and Virgin Media O2 were portrayed in Wednesday’s pitch as a duopoly playing in a higher league.
