Research Note
January 2022 Checking 2021 predictions and making some for 2022
Abstract
Happy New Year to everyone, welcome to 2022! We have now entered the third COVID-19 year in a row and so far, the telecom industry has been performing well, at least on the network infrastructure equipment front (e.g., data centers, fiber, 5G…). For the communications service providers (CSPs), the story is radically different: even though they proved to be essential during this never-ending pandemic, they continue to be undervalued. Figure 1 illustrates the “COVID-19 drop effect” on the 5-year long fall of the STOXX Europe 600 Telecommunications (SXKP) index made of 22 components: Altice Group, BT Group, Cellnex Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, Elisa Corporation, Ericsson, Freenet, Iliad, INWIT, KPN, Nokia, Orange, Proximus, SES, Swisscom, Tele2 B, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telefonica Deutschland, Telenor, Telia Company and Vodafone Group. It’s worth mentioning that Spanish giant Cellnex and Italy’s largest tower INWIT, owned by Telecom Italia and Vodafone, are infrastructure specialists. CHECKING 2021 PREDICTIONS Here is where we stand with last year’s predictions (Stéphane Téral’s Perspective: A few predictions for 2021), 4 of my 8 predictions turned out to be right. LightCounting subscribers can access the full text of this research note by logging into their accounts.