British regulator approves Vodafone UK, Three merger

AFP | London

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Vodafone and Three, the UK division of Hong Kongbased CK Hutchison, are set to create Britain’s biggest mobile phone operator after the country’s competition regulator backed the deal yesterday.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said in a statement that the tie-up will proceed after the companies pledged to invest billions of pounds on rolling out a highspeed 5G network across the UK.

The planned tie-up, first made public in June last year, is valued at around £16.5 billion ($21 billion) by Vodafone and Three, which have 27 million customers combined.

The merger, set to complete during the first half of next year according to Vodafone, vaults the new group above the UK’s two current largest mobile operators BT EE and Virgin Media O2 in terms of customer numbers.

“We believe the merger is likely to boost competition in the UK mobile sector and should be allowed to proceed -- but only if Vodafone and Three agree to implement our proposed measures,” said Stuart McIntosh, who led the CMA inquiry on the merger.

Vodafone said the enlarged group will create “a new force in UK mobile, unleashing more competition and investment to transform the UK telecoms landscape”.