Mobile ISP T-Mobile confirms Orange merger and huge dongle demand

  • November 7, 2009

UK mobile broadband providers Orange and T-Mobile have formally confirmed their merger deal with an agreement yesterday. Now, both the ISPs’ top authorities would take another six to eight months  to examine all the aspects of the merger plan before forming the new company, it was reported.  

In September, both the companies announced 50:50 joint venture deal between the companies and subsequently, both mobile operators engaged in negotiations before signing yesterday’s final agreement .

Orange, third largest mobile operator in UK,  is a part of France Telcom and has 22% market share in UK mobile market while T-mobile, a susbdiary of Deutsche Telekom is the fourth largest UK mobile broadband provider with 15% market share.

If the merger happens, the new company would become the largest UK mobile operator with 37% share of UK’s mobile market.

Meanwhile, T-Mobile said that its mobile broadband dongle sales grew by 71% in third quarter, comparing to Q3 last year. The mobile operator has now over 16.6 million customers who use its mobile and broadband services.