TalkTalk chief Dido Harding urges watchdogs to keep ‘strong competition at the heart of their decisions’ ahead of BT and HWL deals
Dido Harding, the head of TalkTalk, has issued a stern reminder to competition watchdogs to remain vigilant of upcoming mergers which she asserted will most likely drive up prices.
Speaking as the UK’s telecom market faces unprecedented change in the face of BT’s proposed £12.5bn takeover of EE and Hutchison Whampoa Limited (HWL), parent company of Three’s £9.25bn push for O2 UK, Harding told the London Evening Standard that a lack of competition in the sector could be a bad thing for consumers.
Harding said: “Fundamentally we are firm believers in the power of competition. It is what drives companies to invest and innovate and therefore a lot of consolidation is a bad thing.
“When incumbents tell you that mergers will be good for ‘market repair’ it is usually code for prices going up. What you’ve seen as the mobile and fixed-line sector has been consolidating in other countries [is that] prices have gone up and, as a value for money provider, we see that a bad thing for customers.”
At the time of publication however, both Talk Talk and O2 have reportedly expressed an interest in picking up Tesco’s mobile unit for hundreds of millions of pounds.
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