Talk:Telefónica Telecom
Placing here what looks to be directly copied text about Telefonica, posted to a page titled TELEFONICA.
-- Diane Farsetta 11:32, 10 November 2008 (EST)
Telefónica
Telefónica is a Spanish telecommunication company with presence in more than 20 countries. It is the principle multinational group in the Spanish speaking countries in the telecommunications market with an operating income of 8.906 billion Euros in 2007. Operating globally is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world being the 3rd in terms of number of clients only behind “China mobile” and “Vodafone”.
COMPANY HISTORY
Telefónica S.A. was created in 1924 and for several years it was the only telephone operator in Spain. On the beginning the Spanish government was the only owner of the company. However in 1997 the Spanish government privatized almost all the company. Nowadays the company is a publicly owned company. It is estimated that a large part of its stock is owned by capital investment funds. Major stockholders include:
J.P. Morgan Chase: 10.02% Banco Bilbao Biscaya Argentina (BBVA): 5.37% Caixa d’Estalvis i Pensions de Barcelona (“La Caixa”): 5.37% Citibank: 4.66% Capital Group: 3.60%
POLITICAL AND PUBLIC INFLUENCE
There is no evidence of Telefónica influencing any specific political group or organization. Nevertheless the telecommunication company does sponsor some car teams in the F1 (Renault F1 Team and BMW Sauber). Likewise the company sponsors the Spanish soccer teams Real Zaragoza and Valencia F.C.
CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY
Related to the respect of Human and Labor rights or to any environment controversy Telefónica looks like a correct and respectfully company. However the company has been recently involved in several controversies in terms of competition rights:
Europe
Telefónica has received several fines due the convictions over unfair competition and antitrust violations through the Commission on telecommunications, European Commission and Spanish tribunals. These fines include: 900.000 Euro fine, Spanish tribunals , 18 million Euro fine, Spanish Telecommunication market Commission, 57 million Euro in 2004 for unfair competition , and 151.9 million Euros by European Commission for abusing of its dominant position . Moreover has Telefónica two more fines in court, with a value of more than 793 million Euros .
South America
By the time Telefónica entered the South American telecommunication market several governments of the region allowed the company enormous latitude in agreements giving them the power to operate above the law in some situations (for example, assigning or loaning land in Peru: while other companies have to go through an approval process, Telefónica is able to unilaterally add or remove land lines at will).
Consumer protection
A large number of consumer groups in Spain have reported unnecessary delays in cancelling Telefonica´s DSL service. They also indicate that services continue to be billed after being canceled and that service cancelation requests are ignored .
FINANCIAL INFORMATION
Financial data in millions of euro Year 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Sales 31 052 28 411 28 399 30 322 37 882 52 901 EBITDA 12 804 11 724 12 600 13 215 15 276 19 126 Net Results 2 106 -5 577 2 203 2 877 4 446 6 233 Net Debt 28 941 22 533 19 235 20 982 33 574 52 145
Source: http://www.opesc.org/fiche-societe/fiche-societe.php?entreprise=TELEFONICA
EXTERNAL LINKS
http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/41/41846.html http://c.hileno.com/2007/01/i-love-you-telefnica-chile.html http://telefonica.com.co
