Si no puedes con tu enemigo, únete a él: análisis de las fusiones en el sector europeo de la telefonía móvil

Industry maturity usually involves concentration processes as natural reactions towards competition intensification. This is the case of the mobile telecommunications industry. Domestic mergers have increased during the last years. Although existing literature has analyzed concentration processes in other older industries, the more recent industry of mobile telecommunications has received less attention. This study aims to analyze the role of domestic mergers as a competitive mechanism in the long term. We have reviewed all domestic mergers between mobile operators in 43 European markets from 2000 to 2015. After identifying 26 domestic mergers, this study observes that they not only have immediate effects in the market power of participants, domestic mergers also influence the evolution of rivalry in the long term. We observe that domestic mergers slow down the increase of competition that has taken place from 2000 to 2015 as a consequence of factors such as the entry of new competitors and regulators’ intervention.