Three has acquired O2

| Technology

Three has acquired O2

Rumours have been flying around for the last few weeks and for once they are true. It has officially been confirmed that Three is buying O2 for £10.25 billion.

The £10.25 billion in cash (which will be settled in £9.25 billion cash followed by a deferred payment of £1 billion) has beaten Sky’s reported bids for the network.

Once the deal goes through, Three will become the largest operator in the UK going from 7.5 million customers and jumping up to 31.5 million customers, which edges ahead of EE and Vodafone with 41% of the mobile market share. O2 was the second largest operator in the UK after EE.

BT were originally looking into acquiring O2 last year, but recently BT announced they had acquired EE for £12.5 billion, a fair bit more than Threes buyout of O2, however this will be due to EE having a larger customer base and a larger 4G infrastructure.

It is unclear what the merger means for existing Three and O2 customers, and the future of the O2 brand is also uncertain.  

Three are favoured for those that travel a lot as they get unlimited data abroad and this could mean existing O2 customers could benefit from the same service. Existing Three customers may look forward to an increased and improved coverage too. 

Luke Stanley