3 (company)


Hutchison 3G Enterprises S.A.R.L., commonly known as Hutchison 3G and trading as 3, is the owner of a brand name that operates several mobile phone networks and broadband Internet providers in Hong Kong, Macau, Austria, Denmark, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The brand was officially founded on 3 March 2003 in Hong Kong., registered Three customers worldwide numbered over 110 million.
All 3-branded network companies are wholly-owned subsidiaries of CK Hutchison Holdings but the ownership structure varies. CK Hutchison Holdings owns direct majority interests of six networks through 3 Group Europe, including Austria, Denmark, Italy, Ireland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holdings operates the networks in Hong Kong and Macau, while Hutchison Telecommunications International operates the network in Indonesia. All 3-branded networks provide 4G and 3G services; some also run 2G networks and 5G services. CK Hutchison Holdings no longer holds a 3G licence in Israel, which was formerly operated under the brand Orange, or in Norway, where an unused licence was previously held by [|3 Scandinavia].

Etymologies and logo

During the launch of the brand in 2002, when Hutchison Whampoa sold its 2G business to Orange, the brand name 3 represented their new 3G services. In 2003, CK Hutchison Holdings stated that the name refers to their three global telecommunication services: 3G, GSM Dualband and CDMA. The logo, which is a visual representation of the number "3", was originally three-dimensional and orange in colour. Throughout the years of operation, it has had different versions. In 2009, it was unified into a flat black and white logo. The company describes the logo's design philosophy as "cool outside and hot inside".

International operations

Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holding

Hong Kong

3 Hong Kong is operated by Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holdings, a subsidiary of CK Hutchison Holdings. In May 2004, its affiliated 2G operator, Orange, re-branded its services and changed its name to 3 Dualband, referring to the GSM product, and 3 CDMA, referring to the CDMA product. On 29 May 2008, Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holdings announced that it has signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Hong Kong later that year under 3. In 2012, a partnership with Vodafone was launched and 3 Hong Kong is a member of the Conexus Mobile Alliance.
Ownership:
  • Hutchison Telecommunications International: 70.9%
  • NTT DoCoMo: 24.1%
  • NEC: 5%

    Macau

3 Macau launched in 2000 providing GSM dual-band services. In 2007, they launched 3G services. In 2008, 3 Macau brought the iPhone to Macau an agreement with Apple. Till now, they are providing 4G services. In the 2G and 3G eras, it was the second largest mobile operator in Macau. In the 2G era, its market share was approximately 31%, as of December 31, 2003. In the 3G era, its market share was approximately 33% in terms of the number of customers, as of 31 December 2008. 3 Macau is the only carrier to offer VoWiFi in Macau.

Hutchison Telecommunications International

Indonesia

Tri Indonesia was founded as a company in 2000, received a 3G licence in 2003, and began operations on 29 March 2007, initially in the Jakarta area only. Only after 9 months of operations, 3 acquired about 2.2 million GSM customers. 3 achieved high customer mindshare maintaining at about 90% of awareness level as of April 2009.
As of April 2009, 3 Indonesia had about 4.5 million customers on its GSM network. 3 offers both pre-paid and post-paid services. Currently, the post-paid service is available in Jakarta, Bandung, and Surabaya area. 3 Indonesia current slogan is "#IniWaktunyaKita ", formerly, "Dunia Tri. Kekuatanku ", "Your mobile lifestyle provider", "Jaringan GSM-mu ", "Jaringan Selularmu ". Sometimes, 3 use "Mau? " and "Hanya di 3 " slogan in their ads. 3 currently has full GSM coverage in Java, Sumatera, Bali, Lombok, and Riau Islands. And as of April 2009, Kalimantan is covered in South Kalimantan and Sulawesi is covered in South Sulawesi. By 2009, the 3 UMTS/HSDPA service was available in most parts of Java, especially big cities like Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung.
3 Indonesia launched its new unlimited text and MMS service for a fee with Facebook on 8 April 2009, so registered 3 customers can update status, write on their "wall", or upload new pictures free of charge. Besides Facebook, 3 also cooperated with Yahoo! to give unlimited chat for a fee by SMS and downloadable app using Yahoo! Messenger service. Both of these were the first of their kind in Indonesia. In 2013, Charoen Pokphand divested its telecommunication business in Indonesia by selling its share of 3 to Garibaldi Thohir and private equity firm which jointly owned by Patrick Walujo and Glenn Sugita Northstar Group. In September 2021, it was announced that the latter company would be merged with Indosat ; the merger closed on 4 January 2022 with Indosat as the surviving entity.
Ownership of Indosat:
  • Ooredoo Hutchison Asia: 65,6%
  • The Government of Indonesia: 9,6%

    3 Group Europe

Austria

Drei Austria started operations in May 2003. The company promised to have 95% population coverage with HSDPA end of 2007. By 2008, 3's 3G coverage reached 94% of the population. Outside the coverage of its own 3G-network it relies on national roaming on the network of T-Mobile Austria. 3 Austria is the first in Austria to offer its customers so called "HD Mobile TV" based on the H.264 encoding standard, and won IIR telcon awards for their eBay and Xseries Gold offerings. 3 Austria won a DVB-H license and launched the service in June 2008, with three devices and free usage of Mobile TV. In September 2010 – The number of 1 million customers were exceeded. In November 2011, 3 Austria launched HD voice, as well as LTE
In January 2012, 3 Austria announced its national roaming agreement with T-Mobile, which will introduce from July 2012. Customers of 3 Austria will be able to roam on T-Mobile's GSM-network where 3's GSM-network is not available. Simultaneous clients of T-Mobile will be able to roam on 3's UMTS-network where T-Mobile's UMTS-network is not available. The roaming agreement with A1 will be continued parallel until year-end. On 3 February 2012 Hutchison Whampoa announced that it had bought Orange for US$1.7 billion, from France Télécom which owned a 35% stake, and private equity firm Mid Europa Partners, which held the remaining 65%. The combined business will create a mobile carrier with 2.8 million customers and more than 20 percent market share in Austria. JPMorgan Chase advised Hutchison on the deal, while Morgan Stanley advised France Télécom and Mid Europa Partners.

Denmark and Sweden

3 Danmark and Tre Sverige have a common network covering most of the two countries. Customers are "at home" on both networks, i.e. Danish customer receive calls from Denmark without paying roaming fees when they are on 3 Sweden's network and it does not cost extra to call Danish telephone numbers. 3 Scandinavia also previously had a license to build a network in Norway, but in 2011 decided against launching a 3G network in Norway. In 2008 both operations showed a positive EBITDA. In Sweden a small part of the UMTS2100 mobile network is shared with Telenor - except for cities like Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, Lund and Karlskrona where they handle their own 3G networks. In spring 2011, Three started, without Telenor, to build their own 3G Network on the UMTS 900-band which will give a bigger coverage. UMTS 900 and LTE 800 is rolled out using the same base stations.
Today 3 Sweden covers about 98.5% of the Swedish population. In May 2012, 3 Sweden launched its first LTE services. The network uses the TDD2600, FDD2600, FDD2100 and FDD800 bands. The network was launched with ZTE and according to ZTE, this is the world's first LTE network to use both FDD and TDD at the same time. Later it was switched to Huawei and Ericsson and as of now in July 2022 with the roll out of 5G the whole network is changed to Ericsson and Nokia Networks, due to the ban of using Huawei to build a 5G-network. At the beginning of 2022, 3 Sweden was Sweden's fastest growing mobile operator. 3 Sweden also operates its own lower-cost flanker brand Hallon, launched in 2013.
3 Denmark and 3 Sweden has "3 Like Home" which makes it possible to use the phone as home in 50+ countries like.
Ownership:
  • Hutchison Whampoa: 60%
  • Investor: 40%

    Ireland

Three Ireland launched on 26 July 2005 as Ireland's fourth mobile network operator behind Vodafone, O2 and Meteor. Service was initially offered as post-paid only, but on 16 May 2006 the introduction of a pre-paid service, known as 3Pay, was announced. Three operates 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G services. Until 2015, Three had a roaming agreement with Vodafone to provide 2G coverage where its original 3G network was unavailable. On 24 June 2013, it was announced that CK Hutchison Holdings would acquire Telefónica's Irish mobile operations, O2, for €780 million, to be merged into Three Ireland upon completion of the deal. The European Commission approved the merger in 2014. The O2 brand was phased out and its operations fully merged into Three on 2 March 2015.
On 27 January 2014, Three launched its 4G network in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Wexford and Waterford. By March 2014, Three had expanded its 4G coverage to a further 11 towns. In 2016, Three started rolling out 4G+ claiming peak speeds of. 4G coverage currently sits at 97.3% as of March 2020. On 28 September 2020, Three launched its 5G network, claiming 35% population coverage on day one. Three has stated that this service will be available in 121 locations but coverage is expected to expand over time.

Italy

3 Italy was founded in November 1999 and controlled by Sardinian Internet company Tiscali, Franco Bernabè and Sanpaolo IMI. It was the first Italian mobile operator to offer 3G services, launched in March 2003. As of March 2010, 3 Italy had 9 million registered customers. It had a roaming agreement with TIM which allowed its customers to get a 2G service when they moved out of 3G coverage, allowing 3 to offer coverage to up to 99.8% of the population on 2G service. On 22 February 2006, 3 announced the first launch of HSDPA technology in Italy, marketed as "ADSM". On 14 May 2006, 3 was the first in Italy to launch digital mobile TV using DVB-H technology. From June 2008 to November 2011, 3 Italy offered free of charge the viewing of Rai 1, Rai 2, Canale 5, Italia 1, Rete 4, Sky Meteo24, Current TV and La7 television channels with DVB-H technology.
In 2015, CK Hutchison Holdings and VimpelCom agreed to merge their telecommunications businesses in Italy – 3 Italy and Wind Telecomunicazioni – and this was completed in December 2016. The resulting company, 50% owned by each partner, rebranded as Wind Tre and had around 31 million mobile customers at the start of 2017, making it the country's largest mobile operator. In 2018, CK Hutchison acquired the 50% stake owned by VEON, to gain 100% ownership of Wind Tre. In the Italian market, services are now offered under the unified brand, officially unveiled on 6 March and commercially launched on 16 March 2020.