Maybe you remember. Or not. It depends on how many springs you spend.

The truth is, there was a time when the start of Christmas in Spain wasn’t marked by Abel Caballero to press the button and cry of an LED-lit XXL tree more than Disneyland. “Very welcome to everyone here!” No. In the ’90s, we learned that the holidays were about to fall, as TV commercials began to fill with gold and burgundy reflective spots and tinkling tinkles. There were those from Freixenet, AntiuXixona, the “bald man in the lottery”, El Almendro, and perhaps the dean of deans, Famosa dolls.

Also “Hello, I’m Edu, Merry Christmas!” end of 1997.

If memory plays tricks on you – or even if you were not born – nothing will happen. After all, his script fit on a napkin. Basically, a six- or seven-year-old reclining on a sofa called half of Spain to congratulate him on his holidays, while a voiceover in the background sold us the benefits of the phone operator’s latest promotion.

Time for change… and expectations

If only that had happened, it would have been the grace of advertising and perhaps deserved a secret mention in Spanish advertising chronicles. Simple, fun and cute. Stain. However, beyond Edu’s catchy phrase, interesting background for homeland contact history.

The announced firm was Airtel, the second Spanish operator, and emerged only a few years ago to break the monopoly that Telefónica holds in mobile phones. To be more precise, the digital system OSM (Groppe Special Mobile) is the most advanced in the field.

Like Edu’s Christmas cards, Airtel offers little more than nostalgia today; But is it worth it remember your story: how the brand was born, grew and immersed itself.

Airtel’s origins date back almost to the early 1990s, during one of the most important chapters in Spanish telephony history: the liberalization of the national mobile telephony, which until then had a monopoly held by Telefónica. Some time ago they faced a similar process in other parts of Europe, such as the UK, Germany or neighboring Portugal.

Here, in Spain, the prospects were optimistic, but of course far from what a mobile phone would have been supposed to be. in the 90s -remember pioneer– it was calculated that the domestic market would eventually become saturated. eight million users. Telefónica’s own Moviline had analogue technology but had half a million customers.

More or less, the prospects were juicy enough to attract two major proposals: the Cometa SRM consortium, a BBV-led group, and the Airtel-Sistelcom-Reditel consortium, a large conglomerate that includes Airtouch and BT Group. Other major firms include Central Hispano and Santander banks. The award went to the second.

It was authorized to provide mobile phone service in 1995: it started in October and had reached 15,000 customers by the end of the year. “Airtel ends Telefónica monopoly”, headline CountryThis highlights how the old company is facing a change of scenery after seventy years.

In the following years, he would manage to get a juicy slice of the Spanish communication pie. In 1996 it had 652,000 customers, and about 1.2 million subscribers were expected a year later. By 1998 the market share was approaching 31% and the company was starting to make a profit. The script wasn’t all bad either: once upon a time land phoneIn December 1998 Airtel obtained a license for this type of network.

Ironically, there were only three newsletters left for that brand that Edu so gracefully announced in 1997. Reason? business movements, ownership changes and expansion plans for foreign markets. In 1999, Vodafone Group took over Airtouch, one of the companies controlling Airtel, which allowed it to acquire 21.7% of the Spanish operator. He soon succeeded in expanding his control a little further, reaching 74% before Brussels’ approval in 2000.

By 2001, Vodafone Group already owned 91.6% of the company, which was a great cruise ship for expansion. In February, the British multinational company Airtel announced that it would be renamed “Airtel Vodafone”. by the much more corporate “Vodafone Spain”. Vodafone maintained the registration of the Airtel brand for a number of years, yes, until 2017, when it stopped renewing it.

Failing to keep the record would eventually aggravate it.

And by the way, leaving, a curious part In Airtel chronicles.

This old standard, well-known in the Spanish market, was “orphaned” and attracted the attention of a group of businessmen who wanted to revive it. With a marketing move worthy of Berlanga, the brand was advertised again in 2020… Only with no affiliation with Vodafone. The new person responsible for using it was a small company from Albacete, an OMV that took advantage of the situation to get their hands on the name and logo. And of course, make your traction profitable.

“It’s not the same Airtel. The brand is really coming back, it’s not Vodafone that launched it,” he explained to us from the company, though he did include comments on his website that might make us think the opposite, it seems vague. business card: “Airtel is back!!! Known by many as the Second National Operator in the ’90s, he is back again by removing the monopoly on Telefónica and adapting to new technologies”.

In 2020, one of its directors told Xataka Movil, “Vodafone did not allow the renewal of the brand and we saw it and brought it to light. We did nothing that could not be done. I want to deceive anyone, we are not Vodafone”. Vodafone disliked an iota move that didn’t take long to launch its legal mechanism: “Registration, like the use of Vodafone’s distinctive elements, constitutes both a trademark and copyright infringement.”

The former operator’s Albacete renaissance in the 1990s would not last long. Earlier this year it was revealed that the OMV website (Airtel5g.es) has been inactive for months and even its social networking accounts have been shut down. In June, Broadband went a little further and Vodafone’s re-ownership of your brand.

Not bad code for one of the historical posters of Spanish telephony.

By the way, Edu would still congratulate us on Christmas years later, but now bearded and nodding on behalf of another company time change and market.