Vodafone Rumoured to Acquire T-Mobile
If a report in Sunday’s Financial Times is to be believed then Vodafone is going to become a major power in the UK mobile broadband sector. The report, which refuses to cite its source, claimed that Vodafone is contemplating taking over T-Mobile UK, which is currently in a bad patch.
Neither Vodafone nor T-Mobile offered any comments to the report, but the FT hinted that its sources might be from the inside. The same paper had published a report six months ago, which said that Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile UK’s owner, was mulling over the idea of letting the struggling division go.
In addition, in the beginning of last month, it appeared as if Deutsche Telekom was trying to get rid of T-Mobile when its value was dropped in the parent company’s books. However, it was believed at that time that either 3 mobile or Orange would most likely come in and take-over the company.
If Vodafone does decide to acquire T-Mobile, then its current market share of 25 per cent would reach almost 40 per cent. This will make industry regulator Ofcom sit up and take notice. They know this acquisition will upset market competition and Ofcom will not easily allow that to happen.
While up until now all the four major telecom companies had an almost equal share in the market, this deal will probably create imbalances, which is not what the regulators want to see happening.
