Cellnex Brand Guidelines: Abertis Telecom, a 2015 Listing & a Tower Map of Europe

A broadcast network renamed for a stock-market debut.

Cellnex did not start from nothing. English Wikipedia traces it to 2000, when Acesa Telecom, part of the Spanish infrastructure group Abertis, bought 52% of Tradia, a broadcasting infrastructure company in Catalonia; the business became Abertis Telecom. In 2003 it took over the audiovisual business of Retevisión, and Spanish Wikipedia says that from then on it handled television and radio transmission as well as radio networks for security and emergency services.

Broadcasting shaped the first decade. According to English Wikipedia, Abertis Telecom began rolling out digital terrestrial television in Spain in 2005, won the contract in 2006 to carry the signals of Spain’s national broadcasters, and completed the switch from analogue in 2010, once its network of sites had been fully digitised. Between 2012 and 2013 it bought more than 2,500 telecom towers from Telefónica and Yoigo, which Spanish Wikipedia describes as the foundation of its later role as a neutral operator — a company that rents space on its sites to every mobile network rather than running one of its own. In 2014 it made its first move abroad, buying TowerCo, which manages the mobile towers along Italy’s motorway network, and it set up a Sigfox Internet of Things network in Spain the same year.

The name came with the listing. Abertis Telecom became Cellnex Telecom on 1 April 2015, after a shareholders’ meeting approved the change on 23 March, and the shares began trading on the Madrid stock exchange on 7 May 2015. In June 2016 Cellnex joined the IBEX 35 index, replacing Sacyr; Spanish Wikipedia adds that OHL left the index at the same time and that Viscofan came in alongside Cellnex. In October 2017 the company moved its registered office from Barcelona to Madrid, while most of its staff and operations stayed in Barcelona.

Twelve markets, then a change of pace.

Between 2015 and 2022 Cellnex grew through acquisitions, from its Spanish base into twelve European markets, English Wikipedia says. It entered France in 2016 through a tower deal with Bouygues Telecom, the Netherlands the same year, Switzerland in 2017 with towers from the operator Salt, and the United Kingdom in 2019 by buying the telecoms division of Arqiva. Ireland followed in 2019 with the purchase of the tower and site operator Cignal, and Poland in 2020 and 2021 with infrastructure from Play and Polkomtel Infrastruktura.

The largest step came in November 2020, when Cellnex and CK Hutchison agreed that Cellnex would take on about 24,600 existing sites, with commitments for about 5,400 more, across six markets: the United Kingdom, Italy, Austria, Denmark, Sweden and Ireland. English Wikipedia says the transaction was completed in 2022.

In November 2022 Cellnex announced the end of its acquisition-led phase and a turn to organic growth and lower debt. Tobías Martínez, who had led the company since the listing, resigned in January 2023, Spanish Wikipedia says, and Marco Patuano became chief executive in June 2023. Under what Capacity in March 2024 called the company’s “Next Chapter” strategy, Cellnex began selling businesses outside its main markets. On 5 March 2024 it agreed to sell its Irish business, around 1,900 sites at the time, to the Boca Raton tower company Phoenix Tower International; the closing was subject to regulatory approval, and Cellnex announced completion on 28 February 2025. On 9 August 2024 it agreed to sell its Austrian business — some 4,600 sites — to a consortium of Vauban Infrastructure Partners, EDF Invest and MEAG, Capacity reported, and Cellnex said that deal closed on 19 December 2024.

How tower companies present themselves.

Tower companies sell something most people never notice: space on a mast. A mobile operator rents a slot on a tower, a rooftop or a small cell, and several rivals can share the same steel. That makes the business hard to picture, so the companies that run it tend to lean on a small set of images to explain what they do.

The most common is the structure itself. A steel lattice mast against a wide sky, a slim monopole beside a motorway, a cluster of antennas over a city skyline at dusk, or a lone rural tower at sunset all stand in for coverage that cannot be seen. People appear too, usually climbers in harnesses and helmets working high on a tower, a reminder that the sites are built and maintained by hand.

The second register is the map. Annual reports and investor pages often show a country or a continent dotted with sites, because the number and spread of locations is the product. Site counts, country lists and phrases such as “neutral host” or “shared infrastructure” do much of the talking.

The industry also meets in public. Trade shows such as Connect (X) in the United States and the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona put tower companies beside the operators they serve, with stands, renderings of towers and maps of networks. For a design guide, the interest lies in how a business made of steel, leases and coordinates turns that into a calm, legible identity.

A neutral host in ten countries.

Today Cellnex works in ten European countries: Spain, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Spanish Wikipedia, drawing on the company’s 2025 figures, gives 111,752 operational sites at the end of 2025, and Cellnex calls itself Europe’s largest operator of telecom towers and infrastructure. By English Wikipedia’s count from the same figures, France, Italy and Poland are the largest markets by sites, with 26,945, 22,763 and 17,592 respectively.

The business has four parts, according to English Wikipedia. The core is telecom infrastructure leased to mobile operators on a shared-use basis, so that several tenants use the same tower. Alongside it sit distributed antenna systems and small cells for places such as stadiums, airports, metro lines and shopping centres; broadcast networks, including digital terrestrial television and radio in Spain; and fibre, connectivity and hosting, including the Nexloop fibre business in France. The company keeps its legal seat in Madrid and its operational base in Barcelona, and its shares trade on the Madrid exchange.

The Cellnex name dates from the 2015 rebrand, but much of the network beneath it is older: Spanish broadcast sites from the Abertis years, and towers bought from operators such as Telefónica, Bouygues Telecom, Salt and CK Hutchison.

For a design guide, Cellnex shows how a company assembled from broadcast masts and bought-in tower portfolios can carry one name across ten countries. Compare Vantage Towers, the Düsseldorf tower company carved out of Vodafone, and Telefónica, which sold towers to Cellnex’s predecessor. For this guide we use a deep navy, a signal blue and a concrete grey with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Cellnex’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.