Telefonica mulls sale of fixed line business?

Spanish telecoms group Telefonica is reportedly considering the sale of its fixed line business in Germany, Bloomberg cites people familiar with the matter as saying. The report comes amid growing interest in fixed line companies in Europe, with US-based Liberty Global Inc (LGI) agreeing to buy Virgin Media in the UK in February and both LGI and Vodafone Group said to be eyeing a takeover of Kabel Deutschland in Germany. Last month, Telefonica agreed to sell its UK broadband and fixed line phone division to BSkyB for around GBP200 million (USD309 million). Telefonica acquired its German fixed line business in early 2010, when it completed a EUR900 million (USD1.39 billion) deal to buy Telecom Italia’s local unit HanseNet, notes TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database. The acquisition boosted Telefonica Germany’s (O2’s) fixed line subscriber base from 285,100 retail broadband subscribers at the end of 2009 to over 2.4 million three months later, at the same time lifting the firm’s position in the market to fourth place in terms of users. After peaking at 2.620 million in June 2011, the number of O2’s retail broadband subscribers had fallen to 2.376 million by the end of 2012, which the company said reflects customer demand for higher speeds in a declining market.