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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Jasper Jolly and Mark Sweney

Vodafone and Three agree merger to form UK’s largest mobile operator

A general view of a Vodafone contact service office in England.
Talks between Vodafone and CK Hutchison, the owner of Three, have been in progress since autumn. Photograph: Nathan Stirk/Getty Images

Vodafone and the owner of Three have agreed a deal to merge their British telecoms networks in a move that will create the UK’s largest mobile phone operator.

The two companies are the UK’s third- and fourth-biggest operators respectively. The newly combined company will, if the merger is completed, have more than 27 million subscribers, leapfrogging EE, owned by BT, and Virgin Media O2, owned by Spain’s Telefónica and the US-listed company Liberty Global.

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