Vodafone GmbH is a telecommunications operator in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

owned by Vodafone Group Plc and headquartered in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

. It provides

mobile phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This rad ...

LTE LTE may refer to: Science and technology * LTE (telecommunication) (Long-Term Evolution), a mobile telephony standard ** LTE Advanced, an enhancement ** LTE Advanced Pro, a further enhancement * Compaq LTE, a line of laptop computers * Leukotrie ...

, 5G,

cable internet In telecommunications, cable Internet access, shortened to cable Internet, is a form of broadband internet access which uses the same infrastructure as cable television. Like digital subscriber line (DSL) and fiber to the premises, cable Internet ...

landline A landline is a physical telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber from the subscriber's premises to the network, allowing multiple phones to operate simultaneously on the same phone number. It is also referred to as plain old ...

cable TV Cable television is a system of delivering television broadcast programming, programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This ...

, and IPTV services. As of the third quarter of 2021, Vodafone GmbH has more than 31 million mobile customers in Germany, making it the third-largest provider of mobile phone services in Germany. The company's headquarters are in the suburb of

Heerdt Heerdt is one of the older quarters of the city of Düsseldorf, part of Borough 4 (Düsseldorf), Borough 4. Heerdt and its neighbouring quarters Düsseldorf-Oberkassel, Oberkassel, Düsseldorf-Niederkassel, Niederkassel and Düsseldorf-Lörick, Lö ...

, with regional offices throughout Germany. Vodafone 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 Telefónica Germany. Vodafone Germany's network serves both prepaid and postpaid customers on

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a family of standards to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks, as used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and Mobile broadband modem, mobile broadba ...

and LTE ( Long Term Evolution). In July 2019, Vodafone started providing 5G services. At the end of 2010, Vodafone had 36.676 million mobile phone or mobile internet customers and 3.945 million customers with a DSL / VDSL connection.

History

The company in its present form resulted from Vodafone's takeover of the German engineering group Mannesmann GmbH in 2000. On 8 December 1989, the West German Federal Ministry for Posts and Telecommunications (; one of several predecessors of the present-day Bundesnetzagentur) awarded the second digital

GSM-900 GSM frequency bands or frequency ranges are the cellular frequencies designated by the ITU for the operation of GSM mobile phones and other mobile devices. Frequency bands GSM frequency usage around the world A dual-band 900/1800 device ...

(also known as D-Netz (; ''D-Network'' in Germany) network in Germany to Mannesmann, as the first private company in Germany to break the monopoly of the telecommunications services operated by

Deutsche Bundespost The (, ) was a German state-run postal service and telecommunications business founded in 1947. It was initially the second largest federal employer during its time. After staff reductions in the 1980s, the staff was reduced to roughly 543,20 ...

(now

). This licence was subsequently expanded to cover the former East Germany after

German reunification German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the East Germany, German Democratic Republic and the int ...

in 1991. Mannesmann subsequently began operations of its mobile network on 30 June 1992. It was rebranded Vodafone D2 in 2002. In February 2011, Vodafone Germany started providing IPTV via DSL and VDSL connections. In April 2011, Vodafone Germany started to distribute

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

content via IPTV. Following Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone Germany started selling the Apple

iPhone 4S The is a smartphone that was developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is the List of iPhone models, fifth generation of the iPhone, succeeding the iPhone 4 and preceding the iPhone 5. It was announced on October 4, 2011, at Apple's Cupertino ...

in September 2011. As of 2014, the company owns around 75% of Kabel Deutschland and in 2019 Unitymedia was merged with Vodafone. In February 2020, the Unitymedia brand was phased out from market, by Vodafone Germany.

Sponsoring

The company sponsored the AMG-Mercedes team in the FIA GT Championship, both

Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft The Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (DTM) was a touring car racing series held from 1984 to 1996. Originally based in Germany, it held additional rounds elsewhere in Europe and later worldwide. The original DTM had resumed racing with produc ...

and

Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, commonly abbreviated as the DTM, is a sports car racing series sanctioned by ADAC. The series is based in Germany, with rounds elsewhere in Europe. The series currently races a modified version of Group GT3 gra ...

24 Hours of Le Mans The 24 Hours of Le Mans () is an endurance-focused Sports car racing, sports car race held annually near the city of Le Mans, France. It is widely considered to be one of the world's most prestigious races, and is one of the races—along with ...

under the D2 naming. The company also sponsors RAM Racing in the

British GT Championship The British GT Championship is a sports car racing series based predominantly in the United Kingdom. The series was originally created by the British Racing Drivers' Club in 1993 and, for its first two seasons, was known as the National Sports G ...

and the Gulf 12 Hours.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Vodafone Companies based in Düsseldorf Mobile phone companies of Germany Telecommunications companies established in 1990 German companies established in 1990 German subsidiaries of foreign companies