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TELEFONICA

Spain’s Telefonica sells Telecom Italia stake

Spanish telecom giant Telefonica said on Wednesday it had sold its 8.2 percent stake in Telecom Italia to French media group Vivendi, in a deal estimated to be worth more than a billion euros.

Published: 25 June 2015 08:42 CEST
Spain's Telefonica sells Telecom Italia stake
Spanish telecom giant Telefonica said on Wednesday it had sold its 8.2 percent stake in Telecom Italia. Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP

“Telefonica has transferred… 1.11 billion ordinary shares in Telecom Italia… to Vivendi,” the Spanish firm said in a statement to the Madrid stock exchange.

“Telefonica hereby announces the divestment of its entire shareholding in Telecom Italia.”

In return, Vivendi transferred back to Telefonica a 4.5 percent stake that the French company had earlier acquired in Telefonica's Brazilian subsidiary.

The deal was one of a series of transactions in a complex agreement signed on September 19th for Telefonica to take control of Brazilian telecom firm GVT from Vivendi.

Telefonica said the deal overall would yield it a pre-tax gain of €380 million ($426 million).

The deal boosted Vivendi's stake in Italy's biggest telecom provider to 14.9 percent, Bloomberg reported. It said Telefonica sold the shares for about €1.03 billion.

Telecom Italia shares closed 1.09 percent lower at €1.18 euros in trading in Milan on Wednesday.

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TECHNOLOGY

There are still 16,000 public telephones in Spain

Spain has a law to provide at least one payphone for every 3,000 inhabitants, even though an average of one call a day is made from them.

Published: 13 August 2019 09:39 CEST
There are still 16,000 public telephones in Spain
Photo: pawpopa3336/Depositphotos

New data reveals that Spain currently has over 16,000 public payphone dotted around the length of breadth of Spain even though an average of one call a day is made from them.

Telefonica sources cited by news agency Efe revealed that Spain's biggest telecommunications company currently spends €4.52 million a year maintaining the phone booths.

Despite the fact that they are rarely used, Telefonica is tied to a “universal service obligation” imposed by the government to provide and maintain in working order a public payphone for every 3,000 inhabitants in each town of 1,000 or more and one cabin in all municipalities of less than 1,000 inhabitants.

The company estimates that of the 16,000 currently in use, half are almost never used and 12,000 ceased to be profitable years ago, losing the company some €3 million  a year.

The number of payphones has been vastly reduced since the  introduction of mobile phones. Twenty years ago there were almost four times as many payphones across Spain  –  55,000 payphones available in 1999 – and you could expect to find one on many a street corner.

Spain's communications regulator CNMC has called on the government to drop the universal service obligation for public payphones after a recent survey found that nearly 9 in 10 Spaniards (88 percent) admitted to never having used a public payphone in their life.

When was the last time you used one?

READ ALSO: Could technology be killing off Spain's sociable mealtimes?

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