Cellnex announced the completion of its service contract renegotiation with MasOrange on February 20. Cellnex Spain and MasOrange have signed a long-term contract following the merger of MASMOVIL and Orange in Spain last year, to which Cellnex was separately leasing passive telecom infrastructure services.
Following the merger of Orange and MASMOVIL, both companies will extend and unify their commercial relationship in a single contract to run until 2038, with an "all or nothing" 10 year renewal out to 2048.
Cellnex secured in Spain
The deal secures Cellnex in a market where operator turnover is threatening long standing arrangements. Vodafone Spain's new owners Zegona have threatened to terminate their lease with Vantage Towers in four years at the end of their term and swap onto other towers. Cellnex's renegotiation secures their cashflow for the foreseeable future against such hardball tactics.
Cellnex Spain's CEO Alfonso Alvarez described the agreement as “confirmation that we are a long-term industrial partner for our customers. We are very satisfied with this win-win agreement with MasOrange, and the outcome of this first consolidation of mobile operators, providing flexibility in the short term and consolidating our long-term relationship, which also involves service diversification.”
Mobile network consolation is spreading across the world following successful examples in places like Indonesia and the United States. Towercos must prepare and engage constructively with this trend. Alvarez added, “It is vital for the competitiveness of our country and for Europe to have strong mobile operators with the capacity to invest in the quality and extension of their networks, to address the continued growth of data consumption that will be exponential with AI.”
Cellnex will adapt to the new network strategy of MasOrange, which in the short term involves achieving the synergies announced by the mobile operator and rationalising tenancies. Meinrad Spenger, CEO of MasOrange, said “We are very happy with the alliance with Cellnex as it contributes significantly to achieving the synergies announced after our merger in an accelerated manner.”
This acceleration involves additional services for the necessary densification and quality of its network, including a group of new co-locations (on both existing and new-build sites), 5G upgrades, roll-out of Small Cells, fibre-to-the-tower (FTTT) services and DAS services.
