O2 (brand)
O2 is a British brand owned by Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica, used for its subsidiaries in the United Kingdom and Germany, its former subsidiaries in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and since 2018 as an online-only flanker brand in Spain. The O2 brand was created by British Telecom in 2001 ahead of the demerger of its global BT Wireless division as mmO2 plc.
BT Wireless provided telecommunications services in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, the Isle of Man, and a global mobile data business known as Genie Internet. Most of these operations were rebranded as O2 following the demerger from BT. In 2006, O2 plc was acquired by Telefónica, becoming Telefónica Europe. As part of a reorganisation of Telefónica in 2014, Telefónica Europe's holdings and operations became direct subsidiaries of its parent: Telefónica S.A.
Today, the O2 brand is used primarily in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Spain. In the United Kingdom, O2 is the largest mobile network by customer base, and since 2021 has formed part of Virgin Media O2—a 50:50 joint venture between Telefónica and Liberty Global. It has held the naming rights to the O2 Arena in London since 2007, a partnership with Live Nation covering branding and priority access to customers for the Academy Music Group venues since 2008, and been long-time sponsors of England Rugby. In Germany, O2 functions as Telefónica's flagship brand, offering broadband, landline, and mobile services. The O2 Czech Republic and Slovakia networks were acquired by Telefónica in 2005 and branded O2. These businesses were sold by Telefónica in 2013, but continue to license the brand. In Spain, O2 is an online-only flanker brand of Telefónica subsidiary Movistar.
History
1985–2001: BT Wireless era
United Kingdom
Cellnet was launched in January 1985 as a subsidiary of Telecom Securicor Cellular Radio Limited, a 60:40 venture between British Telecommunications and Securicor respectively.In, BT purchased Securicor's shares in Cellnet for £3.15 billion. The company was later rebranded as BT Cellnet, and it became a part of BT Wireless, a group of subsidiary companies owned by BT. BT invested £2 billion in BT Cellnet, and in, BT Cellnet had over 6 million customers.
In, at a general meeting held in Birmingham, 4.297 billion BT shares voted in favour of BT Cellnet's demerger from BT, with 0.67 million shares voting against. In 2001, BT Cellnet demerged from BT as mmO2 plc, and was relaunched on 1 May 2002 using the O2 brand. The company changed its name from mmO2 to O2 plc in March 2005. In 2021 it merged with Virgin Media to form Virgin Media O2.
Republic of Ireland
Digifone was created in 2000, as the demerged mobile business of the prior Esat Digifone which had just been purchased by BT. Esat Digifone was originally a joint venture between Esat Telecom and Telenor. After the acquisition of Esat Telecom by BT, the Telenor share in Esat Digifone was also acquired by BT. Subsequently, the fixed operations, Esat Telecom later became BT Ireland and the demerged mobile operations, rebranded without the Esat name as Digifone, became a part of the newly formed separate company, mmO2 plc. Digifone became O2 Ireland in 2002 as a subsidiary of mmO2 plc following the demerger from BT. O2 Ireland became a subsidiary of Telefónica in 2006, after its parent company O2 in the United Kingdom was purchased. In June 2013, Hutchison Whampoa announced it would acquire the Republic of Ireland arm of O2 for €780m. O2 was merged into Hutchison Whampoa's subsidiary Three Ireland in March 2015.Germany
Viag Interkom was created in 1995 as a joint venture of the German power supply firm VIAG, British BT Group and Norwegian Telenor in order to compete for official licence to provide services in the rapidly liberalising German telecommunications market at that time. In 2001 BT acquired VIAG's share for €11.4 billion following the German UMTS licence auction the previous year. Viag Interkom's mobile operations were transferred into the BT Wireless family and the fixed business became BT GmbH & CO. Viag Interkom became O2 Germany as a subsidiary of mmO2 plc in 2001, following the demerger from BT.The Netherlands
was created in March 1997 as a 50:50 joint venture between BT and Nederlandse Spoorwegen and headquartered in Amsterdam. Telfort was awarded a licence by the government of the Netherlands to provide fixed telecommunications services in November of that year, and a mobile licence was awarded the following year. In 2000, the mobile operations of Telfort became a part of the BT Wireless family. Telfort became O2 Netherlands as a subsidiary of mmO2 plc in 2001, following the demerger from BT.In 2003, O2 sold the company to Greenfield Capital Partners which reverted the company back to the Telfort name. Telfort eventually became a wholly owned subsidiary of KPN.
Isle of Man
was demerged from BT as part of the mmO2 flotation in 2001. Unlike some of the company's counterparts, the fixed and mobile arms of Manx Telecom were not split prior to the demerger, which meant that Manx Telecom was the mmO2 group's only fixed operation at the time.After the demerger from BT in 2001, Manx Telecom continued to trade under its brand as a subsidiary of mmO2 plc.
On 4 June 2010, Manx Telecom was sold to UK private equity investor HG Capital, alongside telecoms management company CPS Partners. HG Capital indicated that the enterprise value of the deal was £158.8 million.
Genie Internet and Genie Asia
Genie Internet Ltd and Genie Asia were created as autonomous but wholly owned subsidiaries of BT in 2000. By the time it became a part of the BT Wireless family of companies in 2001, Genie had mobile portal operations in the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Hong Kong and Japan, and an Internet MVNO operation in the UK called Genie Mobile. Prior to the demerger of O2 from BT, Genie scaled back its global operations in order to align with the mobile businesses demerging with it; namely UK, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands. The Genie Asia business continued portal operations in Asia.After demerging from BT in 2001, the European Genie business became the basis of a central products and services division called 'Products O2' and the Genie Mobile business was rebranded to 'O2 Online' which continues in the UK as a mobile communications service provider tied to the O2 UK network. The Genie portal properties were rebranded O2 Active in UK, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands, and Genie Asia became O2 Asia. O2 Asia became a subsidiary of O2 UK for governance purposes.
2001–2005: mmO2 plc era
Following the demerger of British Telecommunications plc in 2001, mmO2 plc was created as the holding company for BT's former mobile network assets and was split from the rest of the company, now named BT Group plc. During this period, O2 Netherlands was sold to Dutch investment group Greenfield Capital Partners in 2003. mmO2 plc was later renamed O2 plc before being taken over by Telefónica.2006–present: Telefónica subsidiary
On 31 October 2005, O2 plc agreed to be taken over by Telefónica, a Spanish telecommunications company, with a cash offer of £17.7 billion, or £2 per share. According to the merger announcement, O2 retained its name and continued to be based in the United Kingdom, keeping both the brand and the management team. The merger became unconditional on 23 January 2006.Following the completion of the acquisition in February 2006, Telefónica undertook a corporate organisational change that saw the merging of its fixed and mobile businesses in Spain, and the transfer of Telefónica's non-Spanish European telecommunications properties into the O2 brand. Thus, the Český Telecom and Eurotel operations in the Czech Republic as well as the Telefónica Deutschland business in Germany were brought into the governance of O2, which retained its UK registered public company status with its own board of directors and corporate governance structures and processes.
Telefónica chose to keep their existing mobile phone operations in the rest of the world under the brand Movistar. This name is used in Spain and in most Latin America countries, operated by a separate management team.
Telefónica sold its O2 Asia subsidiary in a management buyout in 2007. O2 Asia, headquartered in Singapore, operating in Far East, South Asia, Middle East, and Australasian countries, for a short time developed and marketed a range of wirelessly connected PDA and smartphone products branded Xda for both the Asian and European markets, and further such products under the "MWg" brand, short for Mobile & Wireless Group.
In 2015 there were talks for Li Ka-shing, owner of the rival UK network Three, to buy the company. The following year, the European Commission blocked the takeover.
Operations
Telefónica operates its businesses under the O2 brand through its subsidiaries Telefónica UK and Telefónica Germany. Telefónica Spain uses Movistar as its flagship brand, while O2 remains one of the main network operators in the UK, providing infrastructure along with EE, 3 and Vodafone.| Area | 2G licences | 3G licences | 4G licences | DSL |
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In May 2020, it was reported that Telefónica and Liberty Global plan to merge the UK operations of O2 with Virgin Media, a pay-TV and broadband provider in that country, owned by Liberty Global.