Vodafone and Three UK Officially Complete £16bn Mega Mobile Merger UPDATE
The huge £16bn+ merger between mobile network operators Vodafone and Three UK (CK Hutchison) officially completed today, which will change the competitive dynamic of the UK market. The deal is also expected to help improve the national coverage of the latest 5G Standalone (mobile broadband) technologies, but concerns remain over jobs and consumer pricing.
Just to recap. The merger, which was first announced in June 2023 (here) and finally approved by the competition authority in December 2024 (here), will see Vodafone retain a 51% slice of the business and CKH hold 49%. Both operators have previously promoted the deal as being “great for customers, great for the country and great for competition,” while also resulting in a major £11bn investment to upgrade the UK’s 5G mobile infrastructure and coverage over the next ten years.
The move to create a single company (VodafoneThree) will, however, require the parties to follow several legally binding commitments. The goal of this, as expressed by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), is to ensure that the new company delivers on its planned improvements to network coverage and caps the prices of “selected” mobile tariffs and data plans for the next 3 years. The CMA also required some changes to ensure effective wholesale (MVNO) competition.
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The move should help the Government to deliver on their “renewed push to fulfil the ambition of full gigabit and national 5G coverage by 2030,” which is something that Ofcom will now need to ensure is delivered. The operators have also launched a new website to highlight their plans – VodafoneThree, which is something we covered earlier and only a few minutes before the official announcement (here).
Margherita Della Valle, Vodafone Group CEO, said:
“The merger will create a new force in UK mobile, transform the country’s digital infrastructure and propel the UK to the forefront of European connectivity. We are now eager to kick-off our network build and rapidly bring customers greater coverage and superior network quality. The transaction completes the reshaping of Vodafone in Europe, and following this period of transition we are now well-positioned for growth ahead.”
Canning Fok, Deputy Chairman of CKH and Executive Chairman of CKHGT, said:
“As we have demonstrated in other European markets, scale enables the significant investment needed to deliver the world-beating mobile networks our customers expect, and the Vodafone and Three merger provides that scale. In addition, this transaction unlocks significant shareholder value, returning approximately £1.3 billion in net cash to the Group.”
However, despite all of today’s soundbites of optimism, many consumers remain unconvinced by the agreement and are still concerned about what will happen to cheaper mobile plans once the three-year period of price protection has elapsed. The fears of future price hikes and the gradual removal of cheap plans from the UK market, either directly or via MVNO providers (e.g. iD Mobile, Smarty etc.), seem unlikely to go away anytime soon.
In addition, many of the merged company’s workers will now be going through a period of some uncertainty, which reflects the fact that the new company will be looking for cost efficiencies and such things often get reflected through the removal of duplication (i.e. duplication of both roles and network infrastructure). Inevitably, such deals tend to result in job losses, which may hit in the near future.
At the same time, it’s worth remembering that today’s completion only refers to the legal agreement and its details. The hard part, which involves integrating teams, networks and offices (it’s also unclear what will happen to the ‘Three’ brand long-term, but they will continue to operate independently for now) – as well as launching new products, often takes several years to fully realise. Just ask BT and EE or O2 and Virgin Media, although they also had the complexity of fixed line networks to consider.
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According to today’s announcement, in its first year, VodafoneThree plans to invest £1.3 billion in capex. This will enable the company to accelerate its network deployment. Consistent with previously communicated expectations, the combined business is expected to deliver cost and capex synergies of £700m per annum by the fifth year after completion and the transaction is expected to be accretive to Vodafone’s Adjusted free cash flow from FY29 onwards. Full alignment to Vodafone’s accounting policies is ongoing and pro forma financials will be provided in due course.
Finally, O2 (Virgin Media) and EE (BT) will now naturally face competition from a much larger player in the UK mobile market. At the same time, Ofcom’s staff may quietly relish the greater simplification of only having three mobile operators to herd instead of four, even if that outcome may have some negatives.
UPDATE 10:50am
We’ve had a comment from MVNO operator Honest Mobile, which harnesses Three UK’s network.
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Andy Aitken, co-founder & CEO of Honest, told ISPreview:
“With the Vodafone-Three merger completed, at first glance, it may seem that reducing from four to three mobile operators harms competition. But the reality is that Vodafone and Three simply don’t have the resources to compete with Virgin Media O2 and EE. Merging could actually create a more competitive market, giving us three strong players instead of two leaders and two laggards.
The real issue is the UK’s abysmal mobile speeds, falling behind much of Europe. Maybe it’s time to simply rethink the whole system. Imagine if we treated telecom infrastructure like rail or energy—shared, national, and focused on coverage everywhere, not just where profits are highest. It’s a bold move, but it might be the only way to bring UK telecoms up to speed—literally.
As an MVNO founder, I can’t ignore that this merger means there are now just three mobile network operators we can work with. But if the CMA can ensure that MVNOs like Honest continue to have access to these networks on fair and non-discriminatory terms, we’ll keep the market competitive and act in consumers’ best interests. That’s the real win here.”
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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how long is it likely to be before customers can use both networks?
I’d imagine by September
They’re saying 6 months on their PR website. So probably 12-18 months for it to work reliably.
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.
Yeah same question here. I would like to know that too.
Now concerned that when this happens my reliable Three 5g broadband connection might end up connecting to a poor, slow connectivity Vodafone mast!
‘The joint business will invest £11 billion to create a new combined 5G network over the next 10 years’. Waste of time to be honest! They should stick with 4G and 4G+.
5G roll out are far too slow, never mind the next 10 years! Goodness me! The rest of European will be 6G by then.
Using that logic we should have stayed on ADSL/ADSL2 and never rolled out any form of FTTx….
Well, if we had not junked Hauwei at the behest of the intolerent, neurotic, MAGA numpties of the USA, we could have probably been 5G operational now & well on the road to 6G.
China expects to be using a 6g network by 2030 if not before then.
6G standards, for the majority of the UK, will just reuse 5G network and Frequencies. The much touted high frequency high bandwidth coverage will be in high use areas like shopping centres, railway stations, stadiums, city centre high street’s, etc, and could be considered as more like metro wifi rather than what we think of as standard mobile network.
@gaelforce:
Not true.
Vodafone expressed concerns about Huawei products as far back as 2019, concerning equipment supplied starting from 2009.
@Peter: The initial draft of 6G will not be finalised until 2028. China might deploy an early Chinese interpretation of the standards, but it will not have the entire country switched over in that short a timescale.
Why should we stick with 4G? How did you arrive at your conclusion?
I really don’t care about 5G, just want to be able to connect to the network and at the moment with 3, the majority of the time I can, even at my partner’s placed, which is ten miles out in the sticks. Vodarubbish signal is total and complete waste of time there, that is why my partner changed to Smarty as she was fed up with having no signal, also, smarty is cheaper.
I think of vodafone the same way I think of Openreach and BT. I am dreading this.
No way on this earth is this good for competition, and people wonder why I think corruption is rife in this country.
Surely the brand that customers interact with isn’t going to be called “VodafoneThree”, that’s awful
I’d go for V3 or VF3. Would go nice with the other 2 that only use 2 letters
They’ll drop the “Three” bit with time 🙂
I think VodafoneThree is just interim and the brand will be become Vodafone.
Exactly this, it will just become Vodafone.
This the corporate name. Not the customer facing brand name. That will unchanged for years to come at least.
And will Vodafone’s share price ever get back over £1.
Less competition
Who got the backhanders?
“Merging could actually create a more competitive market, giving us three strong players instead of two leaders and two laggards.”
Thank you
Completely agree with Andy @ Honest.
I know there will be plenty of political ramifications, but we should absolutely nationalise the infrastructure. It seems mad these days that one network gets better coverage than another if you’re the same distance from the mast. We should build one single backhaul network covering 100% of the country, and let network operators compete for customer service and price (similar to how Openreach *used* to be before all these alt-nets made things messy for fixed line broadband).
Nationalisation does not solve anything. Instead, investment would be subject to Treasury policy and would rise and fall on a yearly basis.
Further, nationalisation inevitably leads to higher costs due to union militancy.
We’d be promised the earth, at no additional cost, before each general election. We’d be promised more coverage after every accident where the victim couldn’t use their mobile due to lack of coverage.
In reality though actual infrastructure investment would be minimal, but spending on red tape high. With all the networks being charged the same (can’t have favourites) competition would lessen and prices would go up.
The answer then is to nationalise the operators, which would probably raise prices further and customer service would go out of the window.
I also completely agree with Andy on this one. Unlike with fixed line infrastructure where you can run as much fibre as you want by digging more holes, we’re limited by the available wireless spectrum and chopping it up amongst many competitors doesn’t really make a tonne of sense – it doesn’t cleanly scale, it means those who bet big on more spectrum have to charge more to recoup it and coverage differs wildly from region to region and provider to provider. Hell there was even a time when your phone may not work on all providers because it was only tuned to certain frequencies – it’s a mess.
It makes a lot more sense to give all competitors the same access to all of the wireless spectrum, level the playing field and make it about service and value rather than who managed to pay just enough for the right amount of bandwidth.
A government forever moaning about how cash-strapped it is should nationalise a competitive and regulated industry? I think not.
Let’s hope the regulators keep their nose to the grindstone in terms of its commitments and don’t allow backsliding.
So will MVNOs like Lebara be able to use a Three signal?
This is what I’m also curious about as a customer of Talkmobile (owned by Vodafone).
Pretty certain that’s yes.
Will three customers be transferred to Vodafone network, as three is not working great with network issues
There isn’t a transfer, the Three users will be able to use Vodafone’s network using what’s known as domestic roaming without a SIM card change. I expect this to be an interim measure until MOCN (Multi-Operator Core Network) is deployed.
Probably very similar to the Orange & T-Mobile merger back in the day with roaming across both networks for a while
5G investment will be a complete waste of time and money.
To optimise 5G land has to be mostly flat, unfortunately the U.K. is not, also the public have given a resounding ‘No’ to the North Korean style 5G masts.
This merger can be great news for consumers, but please don’t throw away money on useless technology.
Why bother to post if its clearly misinformed or made up nonsense.
You are correct about the land but design of the masts can be easily changed.
I thought 5G can be on lower frequencies? Higher frequencies have problems, but they have problems with buildings, that is why 5G is so bad in many built-up areas, the signal bounces.
5G is not about speed, even if they say it is, it is about saving money, that why 3G was shut down, because it cost more money to run.
A lot of people I know turn 5G off on their phones as it is so naff, but their provider seems to turn it back on, I presume that is those that have their phone and service from the same network/provider. I can’t see that happening with a MVNO.
Define the word public or is it just you ? You use big words in your posts that often mean nothing to normal readers usually the majority always outweighs the minority You use words like public yet I only see you complaining on posts such as these I’m guessing your against V3 because this goes against your investment on OR/EE Any Anti OR sentiment Or anything that will decrease your share price
Of course 5G can use lower bands and all that. Faralight82 insists on this fantasy that we need North Korea-style masts… and continues to do so even after you point it out. It’s a waste of time to correct him.
@Anon, some networks still want to put up large masts, 3 before the merger was announced wanted to put a few around here, one of them would have been massive, it was refused.
I don’t know why 3 wanted a huge mast up by me, the signal is fine here and for the most part in other places in the city, it is Vodafone that needs to sort stuff out.
I’ve currently got 3 sims with Smarty. If they start raising the prices I’ll be moving them over to another network.
It’s an absolute fact that the prices will rise in time
@Jim, then people need to vote with their feet instead of just paying what they are told to pay. The problem is, people like a new phone 1 to 2 years and will pay for it.
What about spectrum ?
Is o2 going to get some ? Any details
Yes, Virgin Media O2 will be getting some spectrum of of this. That’s why they supported the merger! I don’t know what bands.
We all know EE have plenty of spectrum, even some which sat unused for years, not sure what the latest is with that.
I have a ever growing list of THREE not spots, that is places with no signal, including Didcot rail station to Oxford. I would like to contact Vodathree (yes that isn’t any better than the official one) to surgest new mast locations.
PS did anywhere else in the UK suffer from non existent or extremely slow data on THREE on Saturday 31st May 2025? The only comment on the support number was our engineers are working on a network fault in your area…was this something to do with the transfer to VodafoneThree.
It wasn’t, no.
VodaThrone maybe?
Investing £11Bln on 5G tech the majority of the British public doesn’t want, a very curious business plan.
My Three Business SIMS have hit the toilet in speeds over the past 6 months. In fact I spend 99% of my phone use on WIFI calling. I doubt I will be renewing. I have never liked Voda and not been able to get it until recently. I have an Honest SIM too and it’s good for £45 a year. But I’ve spent a year only having 3 networks on it anyway so nothing to miss.
One thing that gets no mention is that migrating billing systems and customer records from Three to Vodafone will be even more complex than the technicalities of creating a unified nwtwork. For a variety of legal and operational reasons this will take years until all the former Three customer records are on Vodafone’s systems and working well.
It’s Three’s systems that are being migrated to from Vodafone as they’re much newer.
Just like it was T-Mobile’s systems that were rebranded EE despite Orange being the larger party.
Already breaking GDPR laws on their website. No easy decline cookies option.
For all the Three notspots, there are areas where their network excels. In west Wales only EE and 3 have working 5G that actually delivers. Where I live which is on the side of a hill that obscures the nearest mast I get a reliable 50Mbps and on the other side of the valley it goes up to pretty much 1Gbps. I hope that the merger gives us the best of both worlds and doesn’t drag down what is, at least here, a good 3 network.
I’m with Vodafone and thinking of going with Three as it delivers 5G here and decent speeds where Vodafone 5G is currently non-existent, and has been since my contract started two years ago!
My question though – is there much point going with Three now for the better connectivity, or just wait until the networks merge and get the added 5G that Three currently provide on Vodafone in the future?
I mean, how long before the Three name dissappears anyway, and you end up on Vodafone regardless…
The same marketing chaps who concocted the EE’s atrocious original company name of ‘Everything Everywhere’, appear to have invested significant time and effort in devising the newly merged entity as ‘VodafoneThree’.
In the desire to save costs, they could have simply called it: ‘Vodafon3’.
If the chaps were considerable adventurous, they could have come up with, ‘ VF³ ‘, and then utilised that cubic (power of 3) branding to advertise their bold combined network speeds.
A missed opportunity.
I think with a 51% stake in the merger, their objective will be to abolish the 3 brand in favour of Vodafone.
That means signal quality will be poorer. And prices are going to rise….
What are we expecting from a customer service perspective for the merged entity, onshore or offshore, or something in between to keep the shareholders happy ..
I have recently been a Vodafone broadband user and they were rubbish.
Three proved to be a dreadful mobile network.
Both companies are incapable of keeping their customers informed about issues with their services. I was left without a phone for 2 weeks and Three denied their equipment was borked.
They deserve each other.
bye bye three
if anyone thinks they won’t kill three, they’re deluded
The reason whole reason why Three and Vodafone were smaller is because people simply don’t like them, Vodafone went from market leader to third place and had stayed like that since 2001. Vodafone and Three don’t understand the concept of customer service and technical support, they just don’t care, lack of UK based support and the fact you call customer service you select the option you need and all you get is, thanks we just sent you a text with a link to their website and the page just giving you info you already know and not resolving a problem with your account is the reason they are behind.
O2 or BT will overtake them within a year or two, their jump to market leader overnight is artificial and will drop, when Orange and T-Mobile merged, the joining of two networks and switching off certain masts caused signal problems for a couple of years and people left, the same will probably happen with Vodafone Three and of course Three in peoples minds is the network of
No signal even though those problems have mostly gone.
It’s a shame the CMA didn’t include UK based support and improved customer service, but people will switch away if they don’t improve.
It definitely will lead to higher prices eventually, EE and O2 will probably drop their prices so low to attract Vodafone Three customers and their MVNO users, then start raising prices bit by bit.
There is also a reason MVNO operators have mainly chosen O2 and EE, it’s because Vodafone has been difficult to work with. Sainsbury’s mobile and TalkTalk mobile are an example were things went really bad and both said Vodafone was being unreasonable.
I do have to wonder what will become of MBNL in the midst of all this, will Three withdraw from those sites once they’re integrated with the Vodafone network?
I know it’s mostly estate management these days and not so much network deployment, but still some questions to be answered there.
The Three website shows a prominent a message about the merger whereas the Vodafone one does not