As a loudspeaker and pacesetter in the telecommunications industry, Markus Haas has so far not attracted much attention.

The O2 company Telefónica was compared to the D-Netz competition for a long time as the third choice and at best made a name for itself as a cheap homemaker.

Personally, the German boss of the Spanish group prefers to come across as down-to-earth.

Hiking and the mental strength that goes with it is rewarded with a nice mountain snack, which is really one of his greatest passions, he said recently in a podcast.

A Federal Chancellor once said that anyone who has visions should see a doctor.

Haas, in his sober manner, seems as if he could easily sign this statement.

Helmut Buender

Business correspondent in Düsseldorf.

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Thiemo Heeg

Editor in Business.

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Perhaps one mercilessly underestimates the lawyer.

Hardly anyone knows the industry better than he does.

The native of Munich has been working in the business for around a quarter of a century, which is characterized by anything but consistency.

He is also still in the same company, which he in turn has been CEO of since 2017.

It was all the more surprising a few days ago that the O2 boss of all people rushed forward with the demand for a hefty price increase on the mobile phone market.

He wants to increase the tariffs for the group brands by up to 10 percent.

"O2 is banging up the prices," wrote the "Bild" newspaper.

Sales have stagnated for years

Haas quotes the headline – and counters: "That's a manageable amount for every new customer per day, namely 5 to 10 cents more," he calculates in an interview with the FAZ.

Everything stays the same for existing customers.

"We don't raise the prices flatly, we offer more service in return.

It's about quality competition, not price competition.” The Telefónica manager is absolutely right about that.

With his step, he speaks from the soul of the still waiting competition from Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone.

Sales have stagnated for years.

In the fierce competition of the oligopoly, price surcharges could hardly be enforced against customers who were willing to switch.

On the contrary: in terms of the amount of data transported, surfing on a mobile phone has actually become cheaper in recent years.

Always new cheap offers

Last but not least, Telefónica has contributed to this with a constant stream of new, affordable offers.

Brands such as Blau, Ay Yildiz and Ortel Mobile are aimed at a particularly price-sensitive clientele.

The partner brands such as Aldi Talk and Tchibo Mobil, some of which were already developed by E-Plus, the competitors and price breakers on the German market swallowed up by Telefónica in 2014, are set even lower.

Haas had been on the board for two years and, as chief operating officer, ran the core business of the company.

So he was faced with the tricky task of merging E-Plus and Telefónica and leveraging the group advantages that the Spanish parent company hoped to gain from the expensive takeover.

At the same time, at the behest of the EU competition watchdog, he had to cede part of the capacity to the cell phone provider Drillisch, which now trades as 1&1 and wants to set up its own fourth cell phone network.

The integration turned out to be an unexpectedly tough affair.

It took years before the networks and technology from E-Plus and Telefónica really harmonized with each other.