T-Mobile and Orange to merge
T-Mobile and Orange are to merge to create the UK’s largest mobile phone company with about 37% market share. The announcement is contrary to what we reported yesterday when we said that Vodafone and O2 had both made offers for the German owned T-Mobile.
The move will result in a telecoms giant with 28 million customers. The two brands will run seperately for 18 months then branding will be reviewed.
Figures: Orange employs 12,500 people in the UK, T-Mobile 6,500.
It’s been a long road for T-Mobile that launched in 1993 called Mercury 1-2-1, then it became known as one-2-one and most recently T-Mobile when it was purchased by Deutsche Telecom.