This morning, struggling Spanish group Telefonica has just agreed to sell it’s O2 Mobile Ireland Business to Hucthinsons Whampoa’s Irish division, 3 Ireland for over €780 million euro to help cut rising debt.
The sale, said to be finalised in the next 6 to 9 months will see 3 Ireland quadruple it’s marketshare to 37.5 percent and slip into second place behind Vodafone Ireland. Robert Finnegan, the Chief Executive of 3 Ireland has said “This gives us the scale and financial strength to drive competition,” and “We will continue to be aggressive in the market going forward and we would like to be number one in due course.”
Joining these two large Irish networks will give 3 Ireland 37.5% market share, just behind Vodafone’s 39.4% and quite a bit ahead of Meteor’s 19.7% with Tesco Mobile in 4th with just 3.4%.
Let’s just hope we don’t see a rise in prices for everyone involved. Let us know what you think in the comments below.
