Today, the Chief Executive Officer of the Telecom Italia Group, Marco Patuano, presented the 2016-2018 Business Plan to the Trade Unions, which provides for a further acceleration of the investments programme during the period covered by the plan, following on from what was achieved last year.
Specifically, the plan provides for investments in Italy close to 12 billion euros, around 6.7 billion of which will be exclusively dedicated to innovation (NGN, LTE, Cloud and platforms, Sparkle and Transformation).
“This plan confirms us as leader in the development of infrastructure and in the digitisation of the country,” said Marco Patuano. “In fact, by the end of 2018 we expect to reach 84% of the population with fibre optics and 98% with the LTE (4G) mobile network”.
In particular, the innovative investments will be aimed at developing the fibre optic network, with an allocation of 3.6 billion euros, the expansion of the LTE mobile ultrabroadband network, for which 1.2 billion euros are planned, and the development of Telecom Italia Sparkle activities, to which around 400 million euros will be allocated over the three-year period.
The strategic focus of the new Plan will be on Multimedia Entertainment which includes activities in the field of Video, Music, Gaming and Publishing, among others. Thanks to its ICT and Cloud services, Telecom Italia will also continue to support Italian businesses in their digital transformation process, with a differentiated approach depending on the customers' characteristics.
“For our Group, 2016 represents an important year in the transition from a traditional Telco to a Digital Telco & Platform Company enabler of the country's digital life: a business model based on innovative infrastructure and an excellent customer service,” continued Marco Patuano, “increasingly aimed at disseminating premium services and digital content within a customisable platform. A process aimed at consolidating our leadership and supporting the future growth of our company.”
In the Domestic Mobile segment TIM aims to accelerate the distribution of smart devices and to market bundle offers that can generate a higher ARPU, even supported by exclusive agreements with device manufacturers. LTE customers are expected to account for around 70% of Mobile Broadband customers by 2018, thanks to almost blanket coverage of the country at 75 Mbps, with peaks of 300 Mbps in the eight main cities thanks to the use of carrier aggregation technologies.
In the Domestic Fixed segment the Group plans to reduce the drop in customer numbers starting in 2016, tending to achieve equality by 2018, thanks to the acceleration in the adoption of fibre by customers, which in total – retail and wholesale – should reach 5 million in 2018 (1 million more than the previous Plan for the retail component), approximately 40% of the total number of Broadband customers.
Rome, 7 March 2016
