As the European telecom industry continues its consolidation activity, the continent’s less-dominant paging industry hopes it might ride the coattails of this trend to effect something of a turnaround.
The European paging market is defined by its highly fragmented nature. Multiple small paging operators dot each country’s landscape, with little to no cross-border interconnection. The region’s paging industry leaders believe mergers within the paging industry are necessary to kick-start the sluggish field.
Jaques Couvas, chairman of the European Public Paging Association, believes a unified European paging market is needed before it can gain the attention of larger telecom players.
“A European consortium would have the purchasing power to attract wireless e-mail `apostles’ like Microsoft or large content providers like Bertelsmann and the Pearson Group to a unified paging market of 300 million-and possibly 600 million-potential users,” he wrote recently in an EPPA briefing.
“Consolidation is happening throughout the global market, and more particularly in the telecommunications arena, as recent mergers confirm. This is only the beginning. What is happening in European paging today is likely to be replicated on a larger scale within the next three to five years throughout the wireless and fixed telecoms industry segments.”
Antony Bruno
