Follow an irresponsible, amateur-level stream of narrative, so continuing to read this message is not recommended under any circumstances.
Certainly, at the bulk level of the subscription business, there will be pressure on results in the coming years (not just 2026), as competition has become fiercely brutal during 2025. This is, of course, to the benefit of consumers, but pricing is possibly returning closer to a decade ago – without accounting for inflation. This is by no means an idyllic situation for the business, as money wasn’t raked in like Nvidia or the weight-loss drug business even before.
Consequently, efficiency in all its forms plays a massive role so that the bulk business doesn’t end up at a loss. Finnish operators have indeed adhered to this discipline well; they haven’t rested on their laurels. I would argue that Telia, DNA, and Elisa have survived such storms, technological changes, and competitive bidding from each other that only exceptionally high-quality companies could have made it through.
The only bigger question for me in the bulk business is how good satellite connectivity will ultimately become. As I understand it, in Europe, mainly Vodafone is among the first to invest in satellite ventures. Can a sufficiently stable connection come solely via satellites in the future, or will satellites + base stations start cooperating? But this development curve is likely a decade away in any case.
Additional services (cybersecurity, mobile ID, etc.) are probably what can differentiate operators from at least virtual competitors in the coming years, and the margin on additional services is likely better. This can partly make up for the loss in the core business, but probably not entirely.
However, new virtual operators cannot build a sufficiently extensive customer service network due to their cost structure, and thus “legacy” operators may continue to maintain a slightly higher price level. After all, Moi, for example, has been on the market for a long time offering cheaper subscriptions, and legacy operators have survived that quite well. In principle, both a super cheap operator and a slightly more expensive comprehensive mobile company can operate and survive simultaneously in the market.
The fiber optic market is expected to be a buyer’s market, and it will be interesting to see which fiber optic company ultimately ends up with which operator.
The value of base station infrastructure itself should primarily rise as even new virtual operators lease existing ones. A new operator will never build a new nationwide base station network in Finland.
And of course, Elisa also has other initiatives regarding software development around the world (which I admit I’m not sufficiently familiar with). However, even in Finland, 100 “AI experts” were hired earlier this year, and it will be interesting to see what they achieve in the coming years. To my understanding, other Finnish operators have not invested in AI on the same scale but are adopting it more calmly and conservatively.
Then there’s that one potential dark horse, the home battery reserve, which could be a massive thing if successful.
Good things have mainly been heard about that experiment, based on hearsay; Elisa has a reputation as a reliable operator. The home battery market is very much in its infancy, but already, some rogue players are dropping out of the game in the early stages. As battery prices fall, Elisa should also be able to offer batteries on better terms than currently.
And when the operation is large enough, in Finland’s “lucky electricity” situation, a well-distributed, nationwide energy storage system might rise to incalculable value – even if the price of electricity itself doesn’t rise. Nuclear power plants, however, take a decade or two to complete, and that is a golden age for reliable reserve balancing. Thanks to the combination of “lucky electricity” and stable electricity demand. (I genuinely support solar and wind power, but Finland is becoming too dependent on them to claim to be truly independent in the electricity market during winter frosts. But that’s another story.)
Of course, the China risk must also be highlighted in the home battery business. Oh, for crying out loud, why can’t Europe find its own independent battery expertise on a large scale?
In a way, I think about Elisa similarly to Kesko regarding the grocery trade. The mobile side will remain a relatively stable cash cow in the future, on which other initiatives can be built, from which the potential real growth will come. In Finland, however, the physical number of relevant subscriptions cannot grow no matter how much statistics are manipulated; instead, existing customers will jump from one company to another in pursuit of offers (or whatever random annoyance).
I have mainly watched from the sidelines as Elisa’s valuations exceeded €45 earlier this year. Now I have finally been able to start building my own portfolio little by little. The intention is to potentially raise it to one of the larger holdings over time, but without haste. Therefore, I would favorably accept an even longer-term drop in the share price without the overall story changing significantly. But then we shall see.
