The regulatory authority closed last year with a net profit of nearly 50 million euros, mainly due to the fees charged to operators. Without taking into account the interests, it proposes to pay 90% of them to the State.
Anacom, the communications regulator, closed last year with a record net profit of almost 50 million euros, compared with a profit of 32.5 million euros the previous year. The increase was mainly due to higher revenues from fees paid by telecommunications operators. The overwhelming majority of this money is expected to go to the state coffers.
According to the 2022 annual report and accounts, published this Friday, Anacom’s net result in 2022 was, exactly, 49.14 million euros, 51% more than in 2021. The entity chaired by João Cadete de Matos justifies this increase by “the increase in the amount billed related to frequency use fees and electronic communications activity fees”.
According to the document, in total, the revenue with electronic communications, as a regulator, increased by 12% in 2022 and amounted to 113.2 million euros, which in absolute terms is almost 12.5 million euros more than the previous year. This increase reflects “the observed increase in the average costs incurred for provisions over the last five years”, which Anacom justifies by the “processes of contestation initiated by the suppliers” regarding regulatory fees.
“The constitution of provisions has increased from year to year, not only due to the emergence of new processes of contestation of the fees by the service providers, but also due to the strengthening of the coverage of the processes of previous years,” the regulator says in the report.
In other words, when operators contest regulatory fees, they end up paying more to Anacom, which makes provisions to deal with these processes. At the end of the year, Anacom had almost 168.2 million euros of share for this purpose, compared to 150 million at the end of 2021.
In addition, companies in the sector paid Anacom an additional €10 million in frequency usage fees, for a total of €71.95 million, in the year when operators stepped up their efforts to develop 5G in Portugal, after a lengthy auction in 2021 that led the state to collect €566.8 million from the sale of licenses.
Conversely, on the expense side, Anacom managed to decrease them by 5%, to €67.56 million.
In view of these results, Anacom’s Board of Directors has already proposed a destination for the nearly 50 million euros in profits for the 2022 fiscal year. João Cadete de Matos’ team wants to apply a little more than 4.9 million in “investment reserves” with “the objective of being used in the constitution of the statutory capital”, corresponding to the interest obtained with the investments in IGCP and 10% of the result.
The remaining 90%, 44.2 million, will be paid into the State coffers. “Anacom recommends that the part it will hand over to the State (…) be used preferably for the development of communications in Portugal for the benefit of end users,” says the regulator’s annual report.
This is expected to be Anacom’s last annual report to cover the leadership of João Cadete de Matos, as the president’s term ends on August 15. According to the law, he can remain in office until he is replaced by the government, although he has already publicly acknowledged to journalists that he prefers to finish his term at the end of the regular period.
This is not the only change in the administration of the regulator this year. This week, the government formalized the appointment of Manuel Cabugueira as a member of the board. In addition, even before Cadete de Matos completes his term, Sandro Mendonça’s term will end on June 30 and that of Vice President João Miguel André Monteiro Coelho on December 31.
