Hello, World

France Telecom cannot yet celebrate its foray abroad, which, if successful, would create Europe’s biggest mobile-phone company… Even if that deal falls through there are plenty of other possible tie-ups in the offing. Spain’s Telefonica and Britain’s Vodafone are both thought by some analysts to be on the hunt for acquisitions. Late last month India’s Reliance Communications said that it was in talks with South Africa’s MTN about a deal that would forge a firm… with a presence in India, Africa and the Middle East and with over 114m subscribers.

The current clamour to do deals is driven by the belief that bigger is better… Previously cross-border collaboration between mobile operators was accepted, but that was usually as far as it went. Governments in Europe and elsewhere are becoming less inclined to use the security concerns… to prevent certain types of businesses from coming together across borders… preventing foreign energy companies from gaining access to national markets has little bearing on energy security. Thus allowing mobile operators to fall to foreign predators is unlikely to compromise national security. So even if some the current set of proposed deals among mobile-phone operators fails to come to fruition it still looks likely that a round of consolidation is on the way.

Excerpted from an article in the Economist’s online edition