Vodafone and Three UK Launch New Website Ahead of Merger Completion UPDATE
In a subtle but interesting development, ISPreview has spotted that mobile operators Vodafone and Three UK have launched a new website – VodafoneThree – that sets out their plans ahead of the official completion of their c.£16bn mega-merger. This replaces their previous site (i.e. vodafoneandthree.uk has been retired in favour of vodafonethree.com).
Just to recap. The deal will see Vodafone retain a 51% slice of the business and CK Hutchison (Three UK) hold 49%. Both operators have previously promoted the deal as being “great for customers, great for the country and great for competition,” while also promoting a major £11bn investment to upgrade the UK’s 5G mobile (broadband) infrastructure and coverage.
The new website largely reiterates their prior commitments, albeit now re-packaged around the singular ‘VodafoneThree‘ branding. But the language of the website also indicates that the announcement of their final deal completion must be imminent, possibly even occurring this week. For example, there’s this extract:
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Tomorrow starts today
Better yet, customers don’t have to wait to feel the benefits. Within just six months, around 27 million Vodafone and Three customers will automatically be using each other’s networks – connecting them to the best coverage available, at no extra cost.
Meanwhile, the UK’s largest full-fibre footprint will be further supported by Fixed Wireless Access offers and site upgrades. All of which means a faster, more reliable service for every single customer, without having to lift a finger.
But we did notice the odd slight error or contradiction. For example, at the bottom of the front page of the new website it states that they’ll be “#1 for network … with full, nationwide 5G Standalone coverage by 2032“, which contradicts the 2034 date given elsewhere on the same site for achieving this (probably a typo).
However, it’s worth remembering that the hard part, which involves integrating teams, networks and offices (it’s also unclear what will happen to the ‘Three’ brand long-term) – as well as launching new products, often takes several years to be fully realised. Just ask BT and EE or O2 and Virgin Media, although they also had the complexity of fixed line networks to consider.
UPDATE 8:44am
Well that didn’t take long, the official announcement of merger completion dropped into our inbox right as we posted this article. We’ve covered that here.
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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I work in the HQ of Three, feels bit of damp whimper of a launch to be honest. We have not been communicated anything of substance. Any real changes to staff are probably a year or so away, given the scale. Only change is the new Voda-Three signs around the office.
It will be the C-Suite Execs and their support staff who will be experiencing the changes straight away.
I’d imagine it would be a whimper in Three HQ. Whilst the “merger” word is used, this is a takeover by Voda who have a long history of such corporate acquisitions. And as somebody who has worked for the junior party in a similar scale merger, I hope you’re pushing a well polished CV out to the market? Good luck whether you stay with Vodathree, or move on.
Several sources including both Vodafone and Three have announced deal completion as of the early hours of the morning.
It’s very telling that all of the news articles on the front page of this new site are Vodafone this, Vodafone that, and none seem to be Three focused. This really shows who will be the leader.
I mean that was painfully obvious given the terms of the deal and the equity split…
Vodafone owns 51%, so…
The naming must have taken a lot of effort
Most like 6 months of in depth analysis, with millions spent.
Brand team : “Lets just put the names together.”
Very true!
Will they be called apostrophe-3 post-merger?
I do not expect Three will be around in this operation for very long. There has been talk of CK Hutch restructuring its global telecoms operations under one entity. This was denied but some form of review is ongoing. The European markets are fairly mature, so CK Hutch will likely want to focus on markets where it has a dominant position or the local economy has a healthy growth rate. On top of that, after three years, Vodafone holds an option to buy out Three’s holdings in the merged UK venture, gifting CK Hutch another lump sum to invest in Asia or consolidate in the EU.
I like the way people complain about less competition, you have the networks piggy on the Main networks you plenty to choose from The better networks are the piggyback networks they so much are cheaper.
Better for customers? yeah right. Since theyve merged data has been pants. Full signal but slow/ disconnects on internet. Its odd because it cant be congestion as there are two new monopoles that went live like 2 months ago. One is a new vodafone pole and the other is a Three pole. 5G comes and goes even though the pole is located up the road.
On a side note ‘voda’ means ‘water’ in a few languages.