Telefónica guns for europe’s telecom crown by 2030, murtra tells shareholders
Marc Murtra is done playing defense. Speaking to shareholders in Madrid on Thursday, Telefónica’s chairman set a stopwatch on the Spanish incumbent: top-three European telco by 2030, top-five worldwide by 2035, or bust.
Wall Street analysts call it “audible ambition”; Madrid insiders call it survival. Either way, Murtra’s clock is ticking.
From copper to classified contracts
The blueprint he unveiled is equal parts fiber roll-out and arms deal. Telefónica will pump fresh capex into 10 Gbps fiber loops across Spain and Brazil while quietly pitching its cybersecurity stack to NATO-curious clients. Defense contracts, Murtra hinted, carry fatter margins than consumer mobile and face less regulatory heat.
Shareholders loved the pivot: the stock closed up 3.4 %, the biggest daily jump since last November’s strategy day. Bondholders were less giddy; spreads on Telefónica’s 2031 euro issue widened two basis points as rating agencies tally the price tag of dual-front expansion.
Ai or die
Every customer touchpoint will be run through an in-house large-language model trained on 35 billion interactions logged last year. Hyper-personalised upsells, churn prediction within 0.7 % accuracy, and field technicians dispatched before the customer finishes the complaint call—Murtra wants the airline-level efficiency of a company still hauling 100-year-old copper in some villages.
The AI splurge is non-negotiable: “Either we automate ourselves into a 25 % cost base reduction, or we become someone else’s infrastructure,” he told the auditorium, where even the coffee robots wore Telefónica badges.
Exit stage south
While Europe gets the capex, Latin America gets the axe. Peru, Uruguay, Ecuador, Colombia and Chile are already in the rear-view mirror; Mexico and Venezuela are next, executives admitted off-stage. The divestment war chest, estimated at €8 billion, will finance the 5G density Europe’s regulators suddenly demand.
Left unsaid: how many of the 20,000 layoffs pencilled into the 2026 plan will fall outside OECD borders.
Proditomania? not here
Murtra closed with a five-dollar word and a veiled swipe at rivals: “Proditomania—the delusion that everyone around you is plotting your downfall—doesn’t exist inside these walls.” Translation: Vodafone and Orange can keep circling; Telefónica believes it’s the hunter now.
The chairman left the stage to AC/DC’s “Back in Black.” By the time the riff ended, the 2030 countdown had already shaved one more day.