The website of Alex Kinch, live from London
Posts tagged hutchinson
Australian government approve Vodafone & 3 merger
Jun 4th
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has finally approved the merger of Vodafone and 3, according to reports.
According to WirelessFederation, the approval process took a little longer than expected as the ACCC had to spend time to investigate the operations of both companies in detail. Their conclusion? Such a merger wouldn’t damage market competition, and both companies probably wouldn’t be able to sustain a decent level of investment on their own.
The new venture, to be known as Vodafone-Hutchinson Australia, will be the third largest operator in the country – after Optus and Telstra – with a claimed combined subscriber base of around 6 million.
WirelessFederation quote ACCC Chairman Graeme Samuel as saying “Ongoing investments are needed to meet the increased customer demand for bandwidth-hungry data services, including mobile broadband. In this respect, the ACCC considers that mobile voice and data services will continue to converge in the future”
Meanwhile, a short note on 3 Australia’s website says: “You may have heard that we have recently received clearance to merge with Vodafone Australia. By joining forces with Vodafone, 3 will deliver new and exciting offers to you in the future. At this time you can be assured there are no immediate changes, and everything will remain the same for 3 customers.”
Vodafone had yet to officially comment at time of writing.
Farewell, T-Mobile UK?
May 1st
UPDATE: It doesn’t seem that long ago that we lost the one2one brand in favour of T-Mobile – and it might be about to happen again if Deutsche Telekom’s shareholders get their way, and force an exit of the UK market.
According to a report in the FT, T-Mob’s parent company are under pressure from the German government and private equity group Blackstone – it’s two main shareholders – to do something about it’s under-performing UK mobile operation.
Sources close to the supervisory board say the controlling investors are worried about the performance of T-Mobile UK, which is only the fourth-largest player in the UK market – with only Hutchinson’s 3 service having less market share.
The sources quoted by the FT continue: “the issue of getting out of one of Telekom’s largest markets was first aired about six months ago, but falling asset valuations soon made Berlin and Blackstone more cautious about pursuing a sale option alone.
“An alternative to a sale could be a merger or acquisition deal with a UK rival to gain market share, but they want a decision yesterday. Berlin and Blackstone want a quick decision [from executives] about fixing the UK”.
Any proposed merger or sale would have to meet with the approval of the German government, which controls 32% of Deutsche Telekom, and Blackstone, who account for a 4.5% stake – and then overcome any regulatory hurdles. However, according to industry analysts quoted in a recent FT article regulators would be unlikely to veto such a move. One option muted is a merger with 3 – who have already signed a radio access network sharing agreement with T-Mobile. Then again, we’ve been here before back in 2007 – although last time analysts predicted T-Mobile would purchase 3.
The deal would be a good fit – 3 themselves don’t have a 2G network, and would save money by not having to pay Orange for roaming access. The combined group would account for up to 30% of the market – quite possibly ahead of the current leader O2, who had 28.3% of subscribers at the end of 2008.
Another possibility is a merger with France Telecom’s Orange subsidary – analysts from JP Morgan say this is a possibility – which would give the combined group over 40% of the UK mobile subscriber base.
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