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Telefónica Germany GmbH & Co. OHG

O2's German headquarters in Munich
Company type	GmbH & Co. OHG
Traded as	FWB: O2D MDAX Component
Industry	Telecommunication
Founded	29 November 1995; 29 years ago (1995-11-29)
Headquarters	Munich, Germany
Area served	Germany
Key people	Markus Haas (CEO)
Services	Telecommunications Internet Service Provider
Revenue	€7.532 billion (2020)
Number of employees	8,500 (2020)
Parent	Telefónica (96.8%)
Website	www.telefonica.de

Telefónica Germany GmbH & Co. OHG (German pronunciation: [teləˌfɔnɪkaː ˈdʒœːɐ̯məniː]; also called Telefónica Deutschland [-ˈdɔʏtʃlant]) is a provider of broadband, landline and mobile telecommunications in Germany. The company trades as O2 (typeset as O₂).

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 O₂ brand on 3 February 2016. Telefónica Germany's main competitors are 1&1 Mobilfunk, Telekom Deutschland (Deutsche Telekom's German private customer unit) and Vodafone.

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, 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 and Ireland 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 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. 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.

In December 2018, Telefónica Deutschland started to test the 5G on 5 sites in Berlin, in a partnership with Nokia. In December 2019 the company announced the rollout of the 5G Network, starting with Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, and Frankfurt. Telefónica Deutschland is using Huawei and Nokia technology on the mobile radio sites.

References

1. Telefónica Deutschland transfers BASE and E-Plus tariffs to the O2 brand world telefonica.de
2. "Uptown Munchen - The Skyscraper Center". www.skyscrapercenter.com. Retrieved 2023-05-12.
3. Olive Classe, updated from Christina M. Stansell and M. L. Cohen: Telefóncia S.A. In: International Directory of Company Histories. St. James Press, 2010, Pages. 475–482
4. "Von Viag Interkom über O2 bis zu Telefónica: Die wechselvolle Geschichte von O2". www.computerwoche.de (in German). Retrieved 2023-08-31.
5. "Verkauf perfekt: HanseNet gehört jetzt zu Telefónica" (PDF). www.alice-dsl.de. March 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-03-26. Retrieved 31 August 2023.
6. "Börsengang: Telefónica versilbert Tochter O2 an der Börse - WELT". DIE WELT (in German). 2015-10-05. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
7. Nikolaus Hammerschmidt, Großoffensive im Mobilfunkmarkt. Telefónica Deutschland, Börse Online, 21 March 2013.
8. Wirtschaftswoche (2013-07-23). "O2 übernimmt E-Plus: Die wichtigsten Antworten zur Mobilfunk-Fusion". www.wiwo.de (in German). Retrieved 2023-08-31.
9. Stephan Bauer, Großzügig kalkuliert, Euro am Sonntag, 27 July 2013.
10. O'Brien, Kevin J. (2013-07-23). "Telefónica to Buy E-Plus of Germany From KPN". DealBook. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
11. "America Movil stimmt Verkauf von deutscher KPN-Tochter E-Plus zu - WELT". DIE WELT (in German). 2017-08-30. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
12. "Telefonica Deutschland closes €8.6bn acquisition of E-Plus". ZDNET. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
13. "Telefonica smooths E-Plus purchase with network deal". Reuters. 2014-06-25. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
14. Übernahme genehmigt. O2 darf E-Plus schlucken. In: Wirtschaftswoche (in German), 2 July 2014.
15. Verschmelzung von O2 und E-Plus kostet 1600 Jobs. In: Berliner Morgenpost (in German), 18. October 2014.
16. Cornelius, Rahn; Rauwald, Christoph (September 9, 2014). "Telefonica Germany to Raise $4.7 Billion in Stock for E-Plus". Bloomberg Businessweek. Archived from the original on September 9, 2014. Retrieved September 9, 2014.
17. Fildes, Nic (2019-02-22). "Brussels accuses Telefónica of breaching terms in 2013 takeover". Financial Times. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
18. "Passive infrastructure: Telefónica Deutschland sells mobile sites to Telxius for 1.5 billion euros". 8 June 2021. Retrieved 17 September 2021.
19. O2 offering iPad 2 for Business Customers, Netzwelt, last access on October 22nd, 2011 (german)
20. Review of o2 Hosted Exchange E-Mail Service (german)

External links

• Official website

v t e TecDAX companies of Germany updated 11.02.2024
1&1 Drillisch Adtran Aixtron Atoss Software AG Bechtle Cancom AG Carl Zeiss Meditec CompuGroup Medical SE Deutsche Telekom Energiekontor Evotec Freenet Hensoldt Infineon Technologies Jenoptik Kontron MorphoSys Nagarro SE Nemetschek Nordex PNE AG Qiagen SAP Sartorius Siemens Healthineers Siltronic SMA Solar Technology TeamViewer AG United Internet Verbio

v t e BT Group
Divisions and subsidiaries	Current BT Consumer BT Business and Public Sector BT Global Services BT Wholesale and Ventures BT Research Openreach EE Plusnet BT Ireland BT Italia Former BT Marine dabs.com Hibu Madasafish merged into Plusnet Manx Telecom O2 (UK) O2 (Ireland) O2 (Germany) Ribbit Concert Communications Services Telecomsoft Tymnet International Network Services Dialcom Telfort LineOne Swindon Cable 6GMOBILE Open....
Products and services	Current BT Broadband EE Broadband EE Mobile EE TV EE WiFi BT Smart Hub TNT Sports Defunct BT Fusion BT Highway BT Mobile BT Superfast Fibre BT Versatility BT Voyager BT MyDonate BT MyPlace Telecom Gold Micronet 800 Merlin M4000
Buildings and facilities	Current Adastral Park Baynard House BT Centre BT Tower (London) BT Tower (Birmingham) BT Tower (Swansea) BT Riverside Tower Stadium House Charwelton BT Tower Faraday Building Goonhilly Cornwall Guardian Exchange Manchester Madley Communications Centre National Network Management Centre Peterborough transmitting station Zouches Farm transmitting station Heaton Park BT Tower Purdown BT Tower Pye Green BT Tower Stokenchurch BT Tower Sutton Common BT Tower Tinshill BT Tower Tolsford Hill BT Tower Wotton-under-Edge BT Tower Red telephone box KX telephone boxes LinkUK Former Anchor telephone exchange Bletchley Park CS Sovereign Horwood House Kingsway telephone exchange Leafield Technical Centre Mondial House Stag Lane Aerodrome Marland House Sheffield Telephone House Post Office Research Station Portishead Radio Criggion Radio Station Rugby Radio Station Microwave network TAT-1 TAT-8 TAT-9 TAT-14 CANTAT-2 SAT-2 UK-Belgium 5
Programmes and standards	Current BT 21CN BT site engineering code BT Speaking Clock British telephone socket Cable jetting Customer Service System Advanced Mobile Location Digital Access Carrier System Digital Access Signalling System 2 System X System Y ADSL Max Redcare 1-5-7-1 YouView Defunct Digital Access Signalling System 1 Digital Private Network Signalling System Fixed-Mobile Convergence Alliance Go!Messenger International Packet Switched Service NHSnet N3 (NHS) Packet Switch Stream Prestel TXE TXK
History	BT Group General Post Office Electric Telegraph Company
Other	BT Archives BT Museum BT Digital Music Awards BT Sport Action Woman Awards Buzby Connected Earth People Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition British Telecommunications plc v. Prodigy
Category Commons

• 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