Sources have confirmed to the Financial Times that Telefónica (O2 UK) is about to be purhcased by Hutchison Whampoa (Three) for “more than £10bn”. The move comes after rumours of the deal surfaced earlier this week.
According to the newspaper there’ll be an official announcement tomorrow (January 23rd) and it will see the amount of major mobile networks drop from four to three. The deal also comes shortly after it was revealed that BT were in talks to buy EE and will change the face of the UK mobile industry significantly.
Three and O2, when combined, would create a network of 31 million customers. Without a big increase in power by the MVNOs, we’ll all likely see less competition in the marketplace and less chance of cheaper deals.
More as we get it on this. If nothing else, it’ll mean that their adverts are nicely in tune with each other. 🙂