Chief Executive Officer, Cellnex Telecom
Marco Patuano, CEO de Cellnex Telecom
Un modelo industrial y competitivo para las infraestructuras y la agenda digital en Europa.
About Marco Patuano
Marco Patuano, CEO of Cellnex Telecom, participated in several interviews and events in 2024. In a December interview with GLIO and GIC, he described Cellnex as an infrastructure company for digital communication that generates 80% of its revenue by renting tower space to mobile network operators. He noted that the company operates in 10 countries, with five large markets—France, Italy, the UK, Spain, and Poland—accounting for 80% of revenue, and that it was in the process of selling its operations in Ireland and Austria. Patuano stated that Cellnex is "very selectively" entering the active component of infrastructure, emphasizing that the company does not compete with its clients but can provide solutions when operators are not investing, calling infrastructure competition "a poor allocation of scarce financial resources." In earlier appearances, Patuano discussed European digital infrastructure and regulation. In a July interview, he argued that the European Union has favored competition over investment in telecommunications, describing "infrastructure competition" as an "abortion" of the concept. He also stated that lacking good digital infrastructure is a "competitive disadvantage" for a country, as companies consider digital connectivity and energy when deciding where to locate. In a March event, Patuano commented on the company's credit rating upgrade and described Cellnex as a "boring" business in the sense of being predictable, with long-term contracts and low client concentration. He also remarked that an acquisition offer at €70 per share would be acceptable, compared to the then-current trading price of around €33.
Transcript (35 segments)
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Host0:02
Good afternoon. Today you catch me very hoarse, you have managed to finish my voice, but we'll try to get through. Dear special delegate of the Free Zone, president of Barcelona Global and member of the executive committee of the Círculo Ecuestre, I always tell you both things. Friends, today our guest is CEO Marco Patuano, a good friend and very importantly, a member of the Círculo Ecuestre. When he arrived, we immediately went for him and he loved our home and signed up. Marco will talk to us about a competitive industrial model for infrastructure and the digital agenda in Europe. But the one in charge here is Ester Vera, my old friend, prestigious journalist, director of the Ara newspaper. Welcome to the Círculo Ecuestre and thank you for joining us. We'll do more things. Word. Marco Patuano has a degree in Economics and Business and a Master's in Finance from Bocconi University in Milan. He completed his postgraduate education in Europe and the United States. He began his professional career in the telecommunications sector very successfully. He actively participated in the creation of the startup Team in 1995, which later implemented Latin American markets; Team Brasil became the second largest operator in the country. In 2008 he returned to Italy where he held senior positions in the Telecom Italia group and also served as CEO between 2011 and 2016. In October 2016 he was appointed CEO of Edizione, the holding company of the Benetton family, where he stayed for 3 years. In 2017 he joined the board of directors of something we both like very much, which is football; he was on the board of AC Milan. This is perhaps one of the most difficult things an executive or businessman can do, being in the world of football. When I was at FC Barcelona, I looked at my board colleagues, everyone wanted to score from the box; it's hard to score a goal from the box, but you have a very bad time and there are moments of satisfaction but many very bad moments. He was at Milan until 2022. In 2018 he founded MP Invest, a financial advisory and investment company, organizing among other things the acquisition of Inwit by a consortium led by Ardian. He was also a board member and strategic advisor of Digital Value, driving the company's listing on the Milan Stock Exchange between 2019 and 2023. He has been chairman of A2A, the public services company operating in energy, waste and water, also listed on the Milan Stock Exchange. As chairman, he was also vice president of Utilitalia and president of the Banco dell'Energia Foundation from 2019 to 2023. He acted as senior advisor at Nomura for Italy and Europe. During his career he has participated in several prestigious honorary boards such as the Telecom Italia Foundation, the Bocconi Foundation and the European Institute of Oncology Foundation. He has been executive director of Digital Value S.p.A. Since 2023 he is CEO of Cellnex. He lives in Barcelona, in Sarrià, he is delighted to be in Barcelona. Cellnex, as you know, is the largest European operator of telecommunications towers and infrastructure, listed on the Spanish stock exchange, part of the Ibex 35 and Euro Stoxx 100, and holds relevant positions in the main sustainability indices. Well, as you have seen, Marco has not been bored in his life, and my voice has been able to withstand Marco's resume. Thank you very much Marco, welcome to your home, welcome to the Círculo Ecuestre, and I leave you in the hands of Ester Vera, who is surely in much better hands than mine. Thank you all.
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Marco Patuano4:18
Thank you all, thank you for inviting me. It's an honor to be here. Thank you for being here, thank you for joining us. A Barcelona native is one more Barcelona native, as the president said, who lives in Sarrià and talks about football and gastronomy. We could say he is Catalan, not Italian, but more or less the same for what we have at hand.
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Ester Vera4:40
You have more than 25 years of experience in the telecommunications sector, among other things you were CEO of Telecom Italia. You have lived through the evolution of this sector both technologically and in terms of business model. Let's start with a general overview. What is, according to you, your diagnosis of the sector at this moment?
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Marco Patuano5:06
Well, to start, thank you, and sorry in advance for my Italo-Spanish-Portuguese mix, it's a mix of everything, so sometimes it comes out a bit strange. The telecommunications sector has evolved since the 1990s. Europe in the 1990s was the center of telecommunications. I always say that if you want an indicator, in 1995 in Europe there were more than 100,000 engineers doing applied research with companies that no longer exist today: Alcatel, Marconi, Siemens, and we could continue with Italtel, etc. And today when we look at Ericsson, yes, maybe it does research in California; Nokia, yes, with a touch of India. So Europe in this sense, especially in the mobile telephony part, and Barcelona knows very well because of the Mobile World Congress that hosts every year, today we are behind. And why are we behind? We are behind simply because the European community has made a decision: between investments and competition, it has greatly favored competition over investments, and has created in the world of telecommunications a concept that is an abortion to even talk about: infrastructure competition. Competition and infrastructure are two words that cannot be in the same sentence. You wouldn't build two highways next to each other, you wouldn't build two airports next to each other, you wouldn't build two power lines next to each other. But we have to build two fiber lines, we have to build four mobile phone networks. Why? Because we need infrastructure competition. In infrastructure, you don't do infrastructure competition; you do quality of infrastructure, capillarity. Maybe in Spain you don't realize because you have had a national champion. Telefónica, for me, has always been a competitor, but in Spain you don't realize how much fiber you have. Go to Germany, go to France. France is 530,000 square kilometers, Spain 510,000, so more or less the same. You have four times the fiber that France has. Every town in Spain has fiber; in France, no. But this needs a return on investment, and this doesn't work in Europe, it doesn't work.
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Ester Vera8:16
Let's go for a moment to the 5G deployment, and then we'll go to European policy which interests me a lot. Regarding the 5G deployment, how is it progressing? It is key, I suppose, for the digital agenda set by the European Union. I would also like to know if it is necessary, if it is essential, if we are going at a good pace or if we are actually going at an excessive pace.
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Marco Patuano8:38
Well, 5G by itself is... actually we have to say high-speed, high-capacity mobile data transmission networks. Today we are talking about 5G, but when we look at 5G from an engineering perspective, more or less 5G is an evolved 4G, a cheap 5G. So let's look for a second at Japan. Sorry, I'll go through it. 130 million inhabitants, territory a little less than half of Spain. They have one million antennas. Spain has 120,000. Korea, same population as Spain, smaller surface, 500,000 antennas. Okay, so how are we? The growth of data... Why? Because if you go to Seoul or Tokyo, the population... We are maniacs obsessed with mobile phones, but they are more than us. They live with the phone incorporated. The amount of data they use and the need for ubiquity of finding data everywhere leads in this direction. Europe continues to have very important data growth. The United States has good data growth similar to Europe. But the US is more advanced than us. Reason: fewer operators with higher revenue per customer. Europe is behind. Then Europe is a word... we should go down to country level. Spain quite good, Italy good, France relatively bad, England quite bad, Holland very good, Switzerland very good, Germany between bad and disaster, and you go to the East worse. So there is a lot to invest. And this needs, as we will talk about, a somewhat different regulation.
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Ester Vera10:27
Let's talk about regulation. I would like to know why Switzerland and Holland are good. Is it a matter of regulation or a matter of dimension? And what regulation should the European Union have? For example, do you see the Letta report well? And in the area of digital transition, what should be, according to you, an expert in the field and according to your business position, the European regulation to be competitive and sustainable?
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Marco Patuano11:34
Okay, allow me a premise. Today, not having a good digital infrastructure is a national competitive disadvantage. If I have to set up a company in a country, I will look at two things: first, the level of digital connection; second, energy. I don't want a problem with energy. For example, Spain is good, Spain has a very good level of digital infrastructure digitalization. That's point one. Point two, everyone talks about artificial intelligence that is coming, etc. Perfect. So where will artificial intelligence come in? For those who are differently young like me, remember when I was at university, the place of innovation was my dad's office. I didn't have a computer at home, I had to go to my dad's office because the computer and printer were there. I could do things at home with an Olivetti, not perfect. 35 years later, if you go to your home, it's much more innovative than your office. You have cloud solutions, you use Siri to do things, etc. You go to the office and it starts: you can't because of security, because of this, because of that, the list of why you can't do anything. Perfect. So artificial intelligence will enter through the consumer side before the business side. The first place it will enter is the damn thing we have in our pocket, on your table. No, it's already being experimented with solutions like simultaneous translation with a phone, earphones, you speak and I hear in another language. My friends who make glasses are already thinking of putting it here, but if I put it here I need to put a chip and connectivity, so I need a modem. So it will enter through this side. How much will traffic increase? That's a very good question. Today if we say traffic is 100, how much will it be in 5 years? Well, it's being discussed between five and eight times more. Five to eight times more. Now to manage that, imagine we are talking about a water flow eight times more. Can I put that in the same pipe? No, it's impossible, it doesn't fit physically. So we have to invest more. And here we enter... I think we all agree. We will have a couple of technical problems that we will solve. One technical problem is that antennas are big and incredibly ugly, they are horrible. And we have beautiful and wonderful cities. So permitting will be a big problem. For example, how to solve the America's Cup issue? We have to cover the beach of Barcelona because many more people will go to see the regatta. We are doing it with small antennas, we are doing it ourselves, small antennas that you don't see because they are ugly. Imagine a soccer ball that we can put more or less everywhere because it's a soccer ball. On Las Ramblas we are doing special coverage. The Barcelona city council is helping us a lot, and we are putting them in kiosks, you don't see them because the kiosk posters hide them, but there is much greater coverage. Why? Because people want to send photos, videos, etc. And it's so beautiful that you can't put antennas on top of historic buildings. Perfect. But all these solutions have a small defect: they cost. The word 'free' is a word that is liked a lot, but this is not free. To give an idea, a 5G mobile network for Spain can cost between 2.5 and 4 billion euros, depending on how well you want to do it.
So here we enter what I call the cappuccino effect. What is the cappuccino effect? Very simple. Today if you want to buy a mobile phone subscription, in Spain it can be around 15 euros. In the US, 50. In Korea and Japan, 30 and a bit. Switzerland 34. Germany 23. Holland 26-27. Italy 11. Poland 9. Okay. Now I ask you: imagine I ask you this question: do you prefer to save the money that a cappuccino costs per month, or give that cappuccino money per month and tell Telefónica or a mobile operator to have a good network? Because we are talking about this. The difference between going to Starbucks for a cappuccino costs 4 euros. Multiply that by 50 million, 4 per month is 50 per year, multiply by 50 million customers, and you realize how much you can invest. Now, it's not about giving the equivalent of one more cappuccino to the telephone operators so they pay more dividends to my friends at Criteria, it's not that. It's because we need to invest more in telecommunications networks intelligently. Mobile telephony will never have a single network for security reasons, it's a national security issue. Better to have two. In the case of fiber, one is more than enough. So regulation: I hope for a regulation like the one in the Draghi report. My dear friend Enrico Letta, as Prime Minister I don't love him, but as a scholar I like him a lot. We have to allow more consolidation, especially of networks, and give a little more price space. It won't change people's lives: people paying 15 vs 19 per month for a phone. But imagine being without a phone. It's a no-brainer. So that intelligent investment goes through consolidation and price effect.
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Ester Vera20:37
Let's talk about the deployment of infrastructure. Is it the same in a rural area as in a very busy and very needy urban area? Does the digital divide still exist, or what can we do to definitively reduce it?
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Marco Patuano21:24
Well, 5G is a very good solution. The governments that started all said the same: we have to take fiber to the little town on top of the mountain. Yes, but how much does it cost? What is the investment needed? Pay attention because we are talking about billions, billions. It has a Keynesian effect, obviously. I'm going to create a fiscal surplus, but it's not an intelligent allocation of scarce resources. So the solution is hybrid: as long as there is sufficient economic return, also with public aid, I do it in fiber, and the last ultra-rural part can be done with rural 5G. The first two countries launching a super rural 5G are Italy and Spain. Italy put 1 billion euros of public financing for ultra-rural, Spain 500 million. I think 500 million is a bit little for the size of Spain. Spain is very large and has other elements: security, GDP creation, etc. The urban part is totally different. It's no longer a matter of capillarity but of capacity, how robust the network we are going to build is. Therefore, greater investment in Spain in this aspect. I think yes. In Spain I see several very interesting things. First, the fiber point is excellent, a powerful fiber network with the autonomous communities that have invested. Here I need help from my Catalan friends, it's called Xarxa Oberta. It has been a very good investment because it is complementary to private investment, it has not had a cannibalization effect. Very well done. Galicia is thinking something similar, the Basque Country did something similar. So the fiber part is very well done. The 5G part, a little more can be done. The rural part is very large. So probably in the large metropolitan areas we will see a densification of the network that will be very natural, it won't need public aid. The ultra-rural part, I think it's a very good public investment, it's money that creates GDP, has a very important multiplier effect, and there are many studies on this.
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Ester Vera25:13
Let's go back for a moment to artificial intelligence. I am very interested in what you said, that it will arrive through consumers before businesses. Although all of us in our businesses are already talking about and using artificial intelligence for some things that will be very useful in the coming years. Regarding Europe's position in artificial intelligence, are we leading? Are we, as always, the followers? In reality, instead of leading and creating it, what we are doing is only taking care of the legal part.
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Marco Patuano26:00
Well, interesting. First, a small detail. Look, you are already using artificial intelligence on your mobile phone in a tremendous way, you just don't realize it. Have you noticed how much Google search has improved? When you search for something, it already gives you something much more appropriate to your search. Your search is different from my search. Put the same words in a Google search, you and your son or daughter, and you will see that Google gives two completely different results because it has made a different profile. So it will propose one thing to you, another to me, another to my son. It's already like that. How has Siri changed? I see you use Apple. How has Siri changed? How will Gemini arrive? Look, because we... I am probably too old to play video games, my children don't want to play with me because I'm too bad. But we are at a spectacular level. Artificial intelligence is what was said until now: the US invents, China manufactures, and Europe regulates. Yes, yes, yes. Europe, we are in the debate: how to make the regulation of artificial intelligence? It's a bit complicated because we don't have it yet. How are we going to have this debate? I think what we lack at the moment is critical mass of research. To give an idea, this year Microsoft will invest 45 billion euros in artificial intelligence. Microsoft. Plus Google will invest 65 billion euros. So two American companies together will privately invest 110 billion euros. If you can find a state in Europe that invests this, a state or the European Community... And I haven't mentioned Oracle, Nvidia, etc. And this is the first part of the problem. The second part of the problem, and I know I'm going to touch on a topic that is particularly close to Barcelona, is quantum computing. Quantum computing will determine another intelligence because it will allow artificial intelligence systems... Let me simplify. Today a computer works deterministically: it's either zero or one, white or black, no grays. The human brain does not work binary; it works with shades of gray. We are not deterministic, we are probabilistic. If I drop this glass, it will fall because I know Newton's law, not because my experience tells me, so I associate probability one. But we live... A quantum computer allows working in a non-deterministic way, it associates probability functions, so it allows getting much closer to how this works. If we put a quantum computer with a self-learning system, with all this in chain, it will determine that the evolution of artificial intelligence will be exponential, not linear. If we put it on the time axis, sadly we will see it ourselves. It's not something that will come in 30 or 40 years like fusion energy. This is coming. So not investing enough and over-regulating is a somewhat dangerous attitude that we are taking. Always wanting to be protagonists? The doctor didn't say we have to be protagonists. We can also receive innovation from the US, continue producing it elsewhere, use it. We are a market.
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Ester Vera31:48
Well, in Spain there has been a concentration of mobile operators, and I suppose that means there will also be fewer infrastructure operators.
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Marco Patuano32:01
I think so, I think so. Let's see, the mobile operators at a certain point did what is technically called decoupling: they separated three layers of service. One layer is passive infrastructure: the tower, the land, everything that doesn't talk, that isn't electronic. Then active infrastructure: the antennas. And then the service, which has all the relationship with the client. For passive infrastructure, the tower companies were created, like Cellnex, that take care of the passive infrastructure. Why? Because we are more efficient, our DNA is to share. On a tower I can put as many antennas as possible. If the tower is from Orange, they will see it as a competitive advantage and won't share it with others. We continue to build ugly objects in cities. Perfect. But each of us was born as a spin-off from a mobile operator. So four mobile operators, four tower companies. Three mobile operators, four tower companies. And over time, how do you expect that to evolve? Two mobile networks and not four tower companies.
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Ester Vera34:01
On June 6, 2023, just a year ago, you assumed the responsibility of CEO at Cellnex. How do you value this first year of the company?
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Marco Patuano34:10
Many planes, many trips. Well, stage one of Cellnex has been the construction of something difficult to replicate. We have a very important competitive advantage in Europe: size. We are large, we have economies of scale, many elements. It was possible because my predecessor, Tobías Martínez, had taken advantage of a moment of very low interest rates, wide availability of capital, and operators who wanted to sell towers because they needed money to invest. So they did an asset rotation of their capital. 40... I look at Tony, 42 operations, 42 acquisitions. So when you buy 42 objects, you end up with something very similar to my children's room: there is everything, and strictly not in the right place. Everything everywhere. So stage two is to bring some order. Not everything is essential. We had finished... the rise in interest rates was a bit faster than we imagined. So we had a bit more debt than we should have. So also sell some things to balance. Well, what we have done so far is good. I think the financial part is normally faster than the industrial part. So asset sales, we are investment grade, the numbers are coming out very well. The mechanical part needs a bit more time.
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Ester Vera36:57
Does the weight of debt worry you, or is it starting to stabilize?
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Marco Patuano37:00
No, it doesn't worry me. We are a company with very long contracts with our clients. The contract between a tower company and a telephone company is one of mutual respect. Technically it's called 'all or nothing': a contract that lasts 15 years, and at the end of the 15 years, the mobile operator can decide to renew everything or nothing, they cannot cherry-pick. This is very important for us. And we have the obligation to keep prices unchanged, because if we don't, we kill them. I'll wait 15 years and then kill you. So this formula gives us a lot of visibility. We have more than 115 billion euros of binding revenue. So we have 115 billion in revenue and 20 billion in debt. So it doesn't worry me.
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Ester Vera38:21
In a recent meeting with investors in London, you announced the transition from a growth company to a company that also bets on dividends. Does this still hold? Is it related to the rotation that seems to be occurring in the company's shareholder base?
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Marco Patuano38:34
Well, look, infrastructure companies... if I don't know how many people here work in infrastructure, being growth companies is a bit unnatural. Infrastructure: you put a mountain of money on day one, build the infrastructure, and then you start working, generating cash, break even, and then generate cash and return it to shareholders. With all these acquisitions, growth, growth, growth, we were between a growth company, which for infrastructure is rare. We should be a yield company, returning capital. So with this great growth phase, we will have it until 2025, which is growth with a lot of capex, a lot of capital investment. From then on, capital investment ends because the project... look, one tower, two towers, 1.2 million towers. Well, the towers end, and we will start... That's why we are telling our current or potential shareholders: the time of harvest is coming, the time of dividends is coming. And continuing with revenue growth of around 6-7%, which is not bad. Compare with a highway company, a railway company, an airport company: having 7% for 20 years, gentlemen, you won't find others. I put my own money in, like here at Cellnex, where I clearly demonstrate my involvement.
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Ester Vera40:49
You know very well, because you live in Barcelona, that in Catalonia and Barcelona society is very sensitive and values its companies a lot. This is a society of entrepreneurs, small investors. It is a very economically active society. What future can Cellnex have? What vision do you have for the company in Barcelona, Catalonia, and Spain?
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Marco Patuano41:16
Well, for us Barcelona is home. This company was born in Barcelona as a spin-off from Abertis on one side and from... on the other side. I would say 90% of the headquarters is in Barcelona, and the additional center is in Barcelona. So this company has its DNA very anchored in Barcelona. I was president in 2018 when we had to move the legal headquarters to Madrid. You all know, we don't need to talk about why or how. But we did not move our center of gravity from Barcelona. Then we are in 10, 12 countries that will become 10 countries. So I measure... We are relatively low human intensive, we are a company of 3,000 employees, relatively few. A large country like France has 330 employees, Italy 250, England 290. Spain has almost 1,000, between headquarters and all the operations in Spain. So here we are, here we will stay.
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Ester Vera43:00
It is impossible to talk about the future of the economy of the company without talking about sustainability. How is intelligent sustainability applied? What is the future of sustainability in your sector?
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Marco Patuano43:14
Well, one of the things you have to imagine is that we not only provide passive services, but we also buy energy and we are the energy purchasing center for almost all our clients. So this year we will consume 1.8 terawatt-hours of energy. For people who work in energy, that's a lot. To give an idea for others, make a comparison: it's about two Barcelonas for a year. We have made a commitment that from 2025, the end of next year, 100% of the energy we use will be green energy. Well, that guy invented it, every time I see him I say a couple of bad words, but he was right. If you set a date, that day will never come. If I set the date, and importantly, the entire management team has part of their salary, almost 15%, tied to this objective. If we don't do it, 99 is not 100. How do we do it? Don't ask me because I don't know yet, we are still working on it. But the history of the house is that when we don't have a target, we meet it. So I don't know how, but we will meet it. The second big change we made this year is that we have integrated sustainability into the strategy part. Our department is Strategic and Sustainability. Why? Because you don't create a strategic plan and then measure the environmental or social consequences. The environmental consequences are a target, so part of the strategic objective is not a consequence, it's an objective. And this is a quite Copernican change, quite fundamental.
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Ester Vera46:20
Given the time, we could open the floor to you if you have any questions for Mr. Patuano. I see them here, they are coming in. Meanwhile, let's continue talking. You said earlier that digital connection and energy are basic for investments, and artificial intelligence will need a lot of energy. From an energy point of view, what is your vision of the current situation in Catalonia, Barcelona, and Spain regarding energy capacity and the challenge of future sustainability? How are we managing the energy transition?
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Marco Patuano47:23
Well, Spain has a blessing from God: solar irradiation. Actually, Spain has everything: the coast has very good wind exposure, and it has very important solar capacity. Perhaps, I say as Europe, we are not investing enough in innovation in battery storage, etc. We end up buying from Asia, and that's a shame. I remember when I was traveling as CEO of Telecom Italia in Korea, LG talked to me about battery innovation in 2011-2012. I said, 'Batteries? What are we going to do with batteries?' Well, he was right. Now there is a lot of research on batteries, always talking about rare earths, lithium, etc. But you can make batteries with iron. So much more can be done. I think Spain is doing well. We are where we are, but the direction is the right direction. There is also environmental sensitivity, visual sensitivity. For example, wind turbines are a bit invasive, but there are places where it can be done with respect for the environment. So it seems to me that Spain is on the right track. I think someone wants to ask a follow-up: the question is what sources of green energy will Cellnex use from 2025? That is, we don't exactly believe that you don't know exactly how it will be done. What is the path and where is it heading?
Well, the path... For us, the problem is not buying energy. Buying green energy is very simple. What do you do? You buy green energy, you buy certificates of origin. We operate at a European level, we hold a European auction. To give an idea, when we launched the first auction, we lowered the price of certificates of origin from 9 per megawatt to 1. Okay, so that's quite easy. The problem is energy distribution for us, because each tower is a distribution point. So there are 120,000 distribution points. So generation is relatively simple for us, distribution is very complicated. And now we are starting two hybrid projects. One is local self-generation: if I have a tower in, say, Granada, not in the city but in the suburbs, I can put some solar panels next to it, and it will be very efficient. Then I have to put some batteries, etc. But I can never be off-grid, I can't leave the network because I can't risk not having energy for my client. So technically, the purchase part is the easiest. This year we are at 80, 77 by the end of this year. So we will get there. The purchase part is relatively simple.
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Ester Vera51:28
We are also asked: if the future is 5G, what will be done with fiber? 5G without fiber doesn't work, right?
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Marco Patuano51:28
Well, 5G is always sharing a capacity. I have a pipe with water, and we are going to share it. If I am alone, it's for me; if we are two, half; if three, a third. So it has a limit of exhaustion. Fiber virtually has no limit. It's as if each of us has our own personal pipe. When they say you are going to share it, yes, but you are going to share an enormous amount, it has a huge capacity. So fiber has a future for the next 50 years. Why 50? If you like 60, 60. 5G, after 5G we will have 6G, after 6G 7G. 5G is a good way, the best way today to do high-capacity mobile telephony, and it is an excellent way to complement fiber where it is not economical to bring fiber.
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Ester Vera53:22
We are also asked: at what point are the forecasts? Well or badly? At what percentage? 50%, 70%, 20%?
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Marco Patuano53:22
Well, very well. We are not going to get out of there. We continue. And how are the results for 2023, 2024? We are exactly in line, a little better than we imagined. A little better than we imagined because a couple of countries, our colleagues who work there, did a spectacular job. They were countries that had a lot of important operational problems, and they were very, very good. So hats off in this case, because one of the countries is France.
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Ester Vera54:34
Well, thank you very much. If none of you have any more questions, one more question, and we know it was asked. Let's see, Sergio Busquets asks: 'Thank you for everything. Do you think you and I will see the first steps directed by...' I can't read your handwriting. 'Countries directed by artificial intelligence?' So let's talk about the limits of artificial intelligence.
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Marco Patuano55:05
We are creating it, actually. Let's see how we are organized. Like many companies, we have an executive committee with the first line of corporate and the CEOs of the countries where we share the life of the company. Decisions are made. The other day I asked a sufficiently innocent question, no bad ideas. I said: 'Can each of you tell me what you are doing locally in terms of artificial intelligence programs?' Ping, pong, each one was doing one. So we are inventing the wheel 40 times, the same wheel. So I said: stop for a second, let's create one. I think we are going to be one of the first companies to have an artificial intelligence department that works in a very unstructured way, because it won't necessarily be in Barcelona, it's delocalized. We have a very good program in Poland, an interesting program in France, a program that is coming out quite well in Italy, and obviously in Spain. So we divide into three main lines of activity. One is process automation, the dumbest, the easiest, the first to arrive. And thank God, we have a very low rejection rate from employees because employees are tired of doing monkey work, stupid work. Everyone knows we have much more work than time. We know we will get rid of low-value work. The second part will be a quite interesting part of easier and more agile management of large databases. We create a large repository that will have legal, economic, financial data, with which I can interact in natural language. An example: we have 120,000 sites. The site is on a piece of land, almost always rented. So I put all the rental contracts into a machine, and it does drag and drop. The time to load a contract is 30 seconds. Then we put all the technical, commercial, and financial characteristics of this tower. Then I ask: 'Can you tell me which lands I have to buy first?' The machine will see which are the most expensive rents, the most valuable towers, the contracts that expire first, etc., and gives me a list. If I had to do the same manually, it's not theory. In France we already have it. And it's a bit impressive because it speaks French, which I don't like. You have to talk to the machine in French. I say: guys, it doesn't work. And you can do as much as you want. The last one, the most difficult, where we are furthest, is creating digital twins. Digital twins are very complex. A digital twin: imagine you come and say you want to put an antenna on a tower. I have to send a guy to look at the tower, is it strong enough, has enough capacity, etc. Tomorrow I have to have all this information in a system where I get a 3D virtual hologram of my tower, and I start playing with the hologram of my tower. For this we are very far. First easy, second surprisingly easy, third very complex. I have the feeling that in many of our sectors we are more or less like this. For things that help humans work, fantastic. For making humans a bit more complex, thank God.
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Ester Vera1:00:58
Very well, thank you very much. I think our conversation ends here. Thank you.