Presence of the Group in Brazil

[G4-EC7a] A focus on innovation and investments in new infrastructure and technology also characterise TIM’s action in Brazil, a country where the Group has been operating since 1997 through its subsidiary TIM Brasil and which is the Group’s second biggest market. Its presence in Brazil has been increasing in recent years thanks to strategic acquisitions: the Intelig and AEM Atimus fixed network infrastructure has allowed the Group to strengthen the backbones and connecting links of the mobile network radio base stations through the use of fibre-optic cables which, in view of the development of LTE networks, are even more important and strategic.

In the past 5 years alone, TIM has invested more than 23 billion reias in Brazil, focusing primarily on building new generation infrastructure and actively contributing to the modernisation of the country.

In recent years, TIM has strengthened its infrastructure further, in order to support the growth in data, focusing in particular on 4G technology, which offers better quality of service. These important investments have allowed TIM to strengthen its leadership in 4G, in terms of the percentage of people reached and the number of towns and cities covered. As of the end of 2016, TIM covers 95% of the Brazilian urban population, with a presence in over 3,460 towns and cities. In particular, 89% of the urban population is covered by 3G technology and 74% by 4G. Finally, in 2016 TIM Brasil completed the sale of the fifth tranche of the towers to American Tower do Brasil, in order to optimise the financial resources to be directed to the development plan.

[G4-EC7b] In Latin America, ever since it was introduced, mobile telephony has played a key role in the process of integrating more disadvantaged people, contributing to cohesion and to involvement in social and democratic life. TIM Brasil manages almost 63 million mobiles lines and has always played a major role in this context. The work already done to extend mobile network coverage to the whole country is continuing on a number of development fronts, which include improving the quality of the network in major cities, developing Mobile BroadBand and Fiber-To-The-Site (FTTS) in some cities, pilot small-cell and Wi-Fi projects and developing the LT Amazonas Fiber transmission project in the Amazonian region.

[G4-EC8] TIM Brasil is notable for its social inclusion projects, such as the Transamazonica Digital, which takes fibre optic to certain municipalities in the regions of Amazonas, Parà and Amapà. However, the availability of infrastructure is only one of the ingredients and has to go hand-in-hand with an overall digital growth of the population in a literacy development process that will increase demand and stimulate investments. Part of this process is the “National Broadband plan” for Brazil (PNBL - Programa Nacional de Banda Larga), in which the Group has been involved from the start. It is a federal programme which has led the Country towards the objective of encouraging and disseminating the use and distribution of ICT goods and services, extending network coverage to the more remote areas of the country and making services more accessible to all segments of the population, contributing to reduce economic and social inequalities.

TIM Brasil has continued to promote commercial offers to encourage the spread of the mobile web, bringing new flat offers to the market and low cost services which are particularly suited to helping to widen the socio-cultural digital inclusion (for example INFINITY WEB and LIBERTY WEB).

In 2016, the new logo was launched in Brazil, in line with what was done in Italy in 2015, accompanied by the claim “Evoluir è fazer diferente” (Evolve and do things differently). The claim emphasises the new market positioning aiming to highlight the quality offered, the innovation and the utmost attention to customer needs, which are the three pillars of TIM’s new strategy.

Moreover, the Data Connections project reaches all public schools located in rural areas within the area of TIM coverage (data download at 256 kbps and upload at 128 kbps). In December 2016, 95% of the project had been developed.