| NOTAS: | 'An increase in market concentration in the mobile communications industry generates a true economic trade-off. This is the important finding of a new, original report published today by the Centre on Regulation in Europe (read the full report: here). While prices of mobile services have been constantly declining over the last decade, the study considers possible differences between more and less concentrated markets. Compared to markets in which there were no major changes in concentration, the study shows that mergers lead to significant growth in investment per operator while prices also increase, though at a lower rate. For example, an average hypothetical 4-to-3 symmetric merger increases the bill for consumers by 16.3%, while at the same time capital expenditure goes up by 19.3% at the operator level. More realistic, recent asymmetric 4-to-3 mergers between smaller firms in European countries increase, according to the CERRE report, the bill by about 4-7%, while capital expenditure per operator grows by 7.5-14%.' |
