GSMA has a pop at BEREC over Euro MNO merger study

Mobile industry lobby group GSMA is unconvinced by findings from Euro telecoms regulator BEREC about the effects of consolidation.

A persistent theme in the European mobile market is the desire for consolidation. The European Commission has regularly blocked such attempts, apparently viewing four as the optimal number to ensure healthy competition. The counter-argument put forward by operators is that consolidation creates efficiencies and economies of scale that allow for greater investment, etc.

One of the organisations the EC apparently looks to for guidance on such matters is BEREC (Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications), which recently published a report entitled ‘Post-Merger Market Developments – Price Effects of Mobile Mergers in Austria, Ireland and Germany’.

While there were few concrete conclusions the report seemed inclined against 4 to 3 mergers on competition grounds. “In all of the three cases considered, there is at least some evidence that retail prices for new customers increased due to the merger compared to the situation without the merger (the counterfactual),” it said in its conclusion.

The GSMA isn’t convinced and thinks BEREC failed to provide sufficient evidence to support this claim. Regarding price it picks holes in BEREC’s choice of data from Austria, reckons the Irish data used doesn’t support the claim at all and says most of the German data is ‘not very robust’, which seems like a polite way of saying ‘dodgy’.

BEREC also directly criticised the GSMA’s own study of the effects of the Hutchison/Orange merger in Austria, specifically the methodology and data used and the positive conclusions made about its effect on network quality. The GSMA predictably pushed back on that, saying its findings don’t stand up to [the GSMA’s] scrutiny.

“In summary, the BEREC report does not add any significant finding to the existing body of evidence on the impact of mergers,” concludes the GSMA press release. “It fails to convincingly dismiss past evidence on the positive impact of recent mergers, while not providing a convincing picture of higher prices for consumers in Austria, Ireland and Germany.”

BEREC hasn’t issued any public response but if it did, it would probably be something like “It’s not our methodology that’s rubbish – it’s the GSMA’s. And no returns.”