Telefonica revealed its first rebrand in more than 20 years at the company’s AGM, where chairman and CEO Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete (pictured) was re-elected to its board for a further four-year term with increased backing from shareholders.

The company noted its new logo reflects extensive restructuring efforts started in 2019. Its previous branding had been used since 1998.

It stated the latest logo “recalls” one from 1984 which was also a prominent letter T made-up of small circles, but was predominantly lime green. It will be used across its brands featuring the Telefonica name, though not replace consumer-facing identities including O2 and Movistar.

Alvarez-Pallete was re-elected to the company’s board with 84.6 per cent of votes compared with the 80.2 per cent he received in 2017. He has been chairman and CEO since 2016, having already spent ten years on its board.

During his most recent term, the company unveiled its wide-reaching restructure, divested a number of assets, announced a massive UK tie-up with Liberty Global’s fixed unit, introduced measures to limit the impact of the Covid-19 (coronavirus) pandemic and progressed efforts to slash its debt.

Addressing investors at the online meeting, Alvarez-Pallete said the company’s restructure had continued despite the pandemic, with the health crisis also driving the case for digitalisation already being championed by the operator.

“During the initial confinement, digitalisation advanced as much as it would have done in five years,” he said. “Every month of confinement, we made a year’s progress in digitisation.”