(Adds comments from Orange Spain CEO, context, changes
headline)
MADRID, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Britain's Vodafone and
France's Orange are keen to play a role in any
consolidation of Spain's highly competitive telecom sector,
local chief executives for the two companies said on Thursday.
Vodafone's local CEO Colman Deegan said lower competition
would help operators build the financial muscle to roll out 5G
technology.
"At Vodafone, we want to play an active role in the process
of telecom consolidation in Spain," Deegan said in an op-ed
piece published by Expansion newspaper on Thursday.
He said the current state of the market had reduced
profitability and left providers without the financial capacity
to pay for the infrastructure needed to develop 5G technology.
Vodafone, together with rivals such as Telefonica
and Orange, have pressured the European Commission to
soften anti-trust rules that promote competition, arguing that
overcrowding in markets such as Spain hinders investment.
Deegan's position was echoed by Orange Spain's CEO
Jean-Francois Fallacher, who complained that the three main
telecom providers investing in the Spanish market were
suffering.
"We are very favourable to consolidation for the market and
it's the right way to go - if any opportunities are there we'll
look at them with a lot of care," he told reporters at an event
on Thursday.
In a sign of pressure on the sector, three of Spain's
leading operators announced extensive job cuts this year,
including Vodafone, Orange, and most recently Telefonica which
offered redundancy to over 3,000 of its most senior staff last
month.
(Reporting by Inti Landauro and Clara-Laeila Laudette; editing
by Jason Neely and Bernadette Baum)