Three owner HWL buys O2 UK from Telefónica for £9.25bn
Hutchison Whampoa Limited (HWL), parent company of Three, has agreed to buy O2 UK from Telefónica for £9.25bn.
The acquisition will create a network boasting 33 million UK customers and will help HWL establish a dominant position in the market.
David Dyson, chief executive of Three said: “Three’s leadership in mobile data together with O2’s strength on network coverage is a great combination that will bring very real benefits to businesses and consumers throughout the UK.
“The highly complementary network assets will deliver market leading coverage and capacity for talk, text and data and will be well placed to satisfy rapidly growing demand.”
Canning Fok, group managing director of Hutchison Whampoa Limited, added: “We are proud of the business built up by Three in the UK. It is a market leader in mobile data and customers benefit from a superior high speed mobile data network. The signature of definitive agreements with Telefónica today is a major milestone.
“The combination of Three UK and O2 UK will create a business with unmatched scale and strength that will allow us to better compete against other operators in the marketplace and will also enable us to provide even better service and innovation to UK customers in a market that will remain fully competitive.”
The agreement is still subject to the EU competition approval.
The deal follows telecom rivals EE and BT tying the knot earlier this year – with BT launching its first mobile sim card in over a decade today (Wednesday 25 March).