A major European incumbent telecoms operator will radically revamp its consumer proposition

The two fastest-growing major telecoms operators in Europe, Digi and Iliad, are each increasing revenue by 10% or more year-on-year. Both have similar basic offerings – mobile, fixed and TV – sold in simple plans at competitive prices. Both are expanding into new countries while larger competitors are retrenching. Digi’s latest service launch was in Portugal in November 2024 and it should launch in Belgium in 2025.

These challenger operators are also leading in customer satisfaction in many markets. Digi has the highest Net Promoter Score (NPS) for fixed and mobile services in Spain, for example. 

Incumbent operators have long relied on a broad service offering (fixed, mobile, TV), a perception of higher quality, a well-known brand and customer inertia to charge a premium for their services. This approach is getting harder to rely on – fibre services perform well regardless of service provider and there is little difference in network performance from most mobile operators. 

Incumbents will need to be more radical in their response to challengers like Digi and Iliad. Most incumbents are struggling to achieve revenue growth of 2% year-on-year. In real terms, revenue is effectively in decline. 

The Irish incumbent, eir, has found success with the mobile plan offered by its flanker brand GoMo (eir, not coincidentally, is owned by investment funds controlled by Iliad’s Xavier Niel). GoMo’s NPS of 45 is far above the market average (26) and its parent eir (11), and its plans are cheap, at EUR14.99 for unlimited data, in line with the lowest in the market.

We foresee that a major European incumbent will do something equally, if not more, radical in 2025. This is most likely in markets where incumbents are directly threatened by aggressive ‘Digi-like’ players, but even in other countries, major operators may be their own disruptor, as eir is in Ireland. 

Digi’s home market of Romania is something of a warning for the established order. From its beginnings as a challenger fixed operator in the early 2000s, Digi now controls 70% of broadband connections.