Eurobites: Proximus raises guidance, offloads data center business

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Airtel grows customer base, gets hit by currency devaluation; CISPE stresses its European side; VMO2's marketing sucks.

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

October 25, 2024

3 Min Read
Proximus brand sign outside store in Belgium
(Source: Photononstop/Alamy Stock Photo)
  • Belgium's Proximus has raised its full-year guidance for the second time this year after a third quarter that saw its underlying domestic revenue climb 1.5%, to €1.19 billion (US$1.28 billion), and its domestic EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) rise 1.3% year-over-year, to €429 million ($464 million). International EBITDA was up 4.2% on a pro forma basis. One cloud in an otherwise sunny picture was the shrinkage in its TV base – 13,000 customers decided to switch off during the period. In his earnings statement, CEO Guillaume Boutin revealed that Proximus has agreed to sell its data center business to Datacenter United, for around €130 million ($140 million).

  • Airtel Africa saw its customer base grow by 6.1%, to 156.6 million, in the six months to September 30. Data usage per customer increased by a massive 30.9% as smartphone penetration continues to rise across Airtel's territories. Mobile money was also a high spot, with subscribers to Airtel's platform growing 13.4%, to 41.5 million. However, reported-currency revenues declined by 9.7%, to $2.37 billion, reflecting the impact of currency devaluation, particularly the Nigeria naira. Soaring fuel prices also took their toll on Airtel's margins.

  • Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE) wants to get even more euro-centric, so the trade body has made changes to its governance, determining that a minimum of 75% (up from 50%) of board seats are now reserved for companies headquartered in Europe. Furthermore, 75% of all members must be based in Europe. CISPE has also outlined a new program of work, which includes a campaign to prevent the EU's proposed Digital Networks Act from harming Europe's cloud ecosystem.

  • Another trade body, the GSMA, has published a report highlighting how telecom reforms and investments in mobile technology are catalyzing growth in Ethiopia's key business sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing and public services. According to Digital Economy Ethiopia Report: Opportunities, policy reforms and the role of mobile, Ethiopia's digital economy could add more than 1.3 trillion Ethiopian Birr ($108 million) to the country's GDP by 2028, creating over 1 million new jobs in the process.

  • Telefónica Tech has teamed up with Xylem and Ídrica to create a data lake to help manage – appropriately enough –  water resources in the principality of Asturias in northern Spain. The system will integrate data relating to water supply and sanitation supplied by sensors already deployed by the Asturian authorities. Among other benefits, the information sloshing around in the data lake will help the authorities manage potential flood scenarios.

  • Safaricom contributed 983 billion Kenyan shillings ($7.6 billion) to the Kenyan economy in its last financial year, according to the operator's latest Sustainable Business Report. The M-Pesa mobile money platform accounted for KES348 billion ($2.7 billion) of this total. The report also revealed that Safaricom has increased the percentage of women in leadership roles to 42.4%.

  • UK altnet Hyperoptic has hired Geoff Heddle as its new director of product. Heddle has worked in product delivery roles for the last couple of decades, but he was a freelance opera singer for more than four years so should be able to make himself heard in meetings.

  • UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has decided to investigate the commercial partnership between tech behemoth Alphabet and Anthropic, an AI company. The CMA is clearly uneasy about Big Tech's apparent attempts to gain a stranglehold on AI and has previously launched three separate but linked inquiries into tech giants' partnerships – two of them struck by Microsoft and one by Amazon – with much smaller AI companies. (See Telcos in the AI sweet spot, says Anthropic.)

  • When in doubt, reach for the sexy gadget. UK converged operator Virgin Media O2 is deploying a robot vacuum cleaner as its latest broadband sign-up bait. Those willing to fork out at least £60.99 ($79.20) per month for a VMO2 broadband bundle will be able to sit back, stream a movie in unnecessarily high definition and watch their Eufy Robot Vacuum – retail value: £399 ($518) – struggle to suck up those crumbs in the corner of the room. In short: living the dream.

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About the Author

Paul Rainford

Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

Paul is based on the Isle of Wight, a rocky outcrop off the English coast that is home only to a colony of technology journalists and several thousand puffins.

He has worked as a writer and copy editor since the age of William Caxton, covering the design industry, D-list celebs, tourism and much, much more.

During the noughties Paul took time out from his page proofs and marker pens to run a small hotel with his other half in the wilds of Exmoor. There he developed a range of skills including carrying cooked breakfasts, lying to unwanted guests and stopping leaks with old towels.

Now back, slightly befuddled, in the world of online journalism, Paul is thoroughly engaged with the modern world, regularly firing up his VHS video recorder and accidentally sending text messages to strangers using a chipped Nokia feature phone.

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