Telefónica Germany GmbH & Co. OHG (; also called Telefónica Deutschland ) is a provider of
broadband
In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide-bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Inter ...
,
landline and mobile telecommunications in Germany. The company
trades as O2 (typeset as O
2).
The company was renamed from Telefónica O2 Germany to Telefónica Germany on 1 April 2011 following the completion of a merger with HanseNet. Telefónica Germany purchased
E-Plus on 1 October 2014, unifying the business under O
2 brand on 3 February 2016. Telefónica Germany's
main competitors are
1&1 Mobilfunk,
Telekom Deutschland (
Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom AG (, ; often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a partially state-owned German telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn and the largest telecommunications provider in Europe by revenue. It was formed in 199 ...
's German private customer unit) and
Vodafone
Vodafone Group Public Limited Company () is a British Multinational company, multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates Service (economic ...
.
History
Telefónica Germany was founded in 1995 as Viag Interkom, as a joint venture between
British Telecommunications (45%),
VIAG (45%) and
Telenor (10%). Viag Interkom was awarded Germany's second
GSM-1800 (also known as E-Netz (
de; ''lit. E-Network'' in Germany) license in February 1997 and began operations on 1 February 1998 in eight cities.
In 2001, BT acquired VIAGs remaining shares for €11.4 billion, and the company was renamed BT Germany, it became a part of BT Wireless, a group of subsidiary companies owned by BT. BT Wireless demerged from BT in 2001 to form
mmO2 plc and Viag Interkom was relaunched as O2 Germany.
Since 2004, the so called
Uptown Munich is O2's German headquarters. The 38-story highrise is the tallest building in
Munich
Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
, designed by architect
Christoph Ingenhoven.
In 2005, mmO2 plc. of which O2 Germany is a part, was acquired by Spanish telecoms giant,
Telefónica. Telefónica additionally took over O2's subsidiaries in
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
and
Ireland
Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
for a total of £17.7 billion as part of its expansion strategy into Europe. As a new subsidiary of Telefónica, Telefónica O2 Germany rebranded as Telefónica O2 Germany GmbH in 2008.
In 2010, Telefónica O2 Germany merged with HanseNet. The merged company was renamed to Telefónica Germany.
In a bid to boost revenues of up to €1.68 billion earmarked to flow into debt reduction, Telefónica announced its subsidiary, Telefónica O2 Germany, would be making an
IPO (initial public offering). The IPO would involve the sale of a minority stake (23%) of the subsidiary on the 30 October, 2012, prior to which point they had proceeded through a change in legal form.
Post IPO
Following the transition, in March 2013, Telefónica Germany was incorporated into the
TecDAX stock exchange index. In July of the same year, media reports stated that the company had proposed a merger with its rival, E-Plus, a German subsidiary of
Royal KPN NV. The merger created the largest mobile phone provider in Germany in terms of network connections. The planned merger initially received resistance from a minority shareholder of E-Plus, America Movil SAB, but this was overcome in August 2013.
In mid-2014, the
European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...
approved the sale of Dutch telco provider KPN's German subsidiary, E-Plus, subject to certain requirements being met. These included the transfer of 30% of network capacity and certain assets among other assurances. In exchange, KPN received €8.6 billion (€5 billion of which was cash).
In September 2014, Telefónica Germany announced the sale of €3.62 billion in new stock to help finance the acquisition of its competitor
E-Plus from
KPN. As part of the purchase, Telefónica reduced its stake in its subsidiary to 62.1%.
In 2019, the European Commission accused Telefónica Germany of breaching the commitments it made when acquiring E-Plus in 2013. The statement of objections sent to the German company included potential fines or a reversal of the merger. Investigations found that Telefónica Germany did not offer competitors the "best prices” for access to their 4G network. The European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, urged full compliance with commitments made in merger decisions. Telefónica Germany responded that they acted in full compliance with the remedy in response to the Commission's objections.
In June 2020, Telefónica announced the sale of 10,100 mobile sites to Telxius for
€ 1.5 billion.
Products
Telefónica Germany operates second, third and fourth generation mobile networks, allowing customers to use GPRS, EDGE, UMTS up to HSPA+ and LTE for data connections. Most of O2 plans are available both in a pre- and post-paid version, including the all-in-one-flatrates called ''o2 o'' and ''o2 on'' for enterprise customers. Beside the core business, Telefónica Germany is one of the largest retailers for mobile phones and tablets without a
SIM lock
A SIM lock, simlock, network lock, carrier lock or (master) subsidy lock is a technical restriction built into GSM and CDMA mobile phones by mobile phone manufacturers for use by service providers to restrict the use of these phones to specific co ...
. It was the first operator offering both
Apple's iPhone 4 and the
iPad 2. Also, Telefónica Germany offers hosting services for large and midsized companies, serving some well-known portals including
Spiegel Online and
Sevenload. Together with Microsoft and
Visionapp, Telefónica Germany provides a cloud service for
Hosted Exchange.
Review of o2 Hosted Exchange E-Mail Service
(german)
In December 2018, Telefónica Deutschland started to test the 5G on 5 sites in Berlin, in a partnership with Nokia
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...
. In December 2019 the company announced the rollout of the 5G Network, starting with Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
, Hamburg
Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...
, Munich
Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
, Cologne
Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...
, and Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...
. Telefónica Deutschland is using Huawei
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ("Huawei" sometimes stylized as "HUAWEI"; ; zh, c=华为, p= ) is a Chinese multinational corporationtechnology company in Longgang, Shenzhen, Longgang, Shenzhen, Guangdong. Its main product lines include teleco ...
and Nokia
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...
technology on the mobile radio sites.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Telefonica Germany
Telecommunications companies of Germany
Mobile phone companies of Germany
Internet service providers of Germany
Telecommunications companies established in 1995
Companies in the TecDAX
Companies in the MDAX
Companies listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange
German subsidiaries of foreign companies