About Telefónica O2

Telefónica O2 Europe plc (known prior to March 2006 as O2 plc and prior to March 2005 as mmO2 plc, and styled in its logotype as O₂, like the chemical symbol) is a European telecommunications company delivering both fixed and mobile communication products. The company has its origins in a combination of a European subset of a collection of worldwide mobile operator interests known in the latter half of the 1990s as BT Wireless within BT Group plc and an operator-independent global mobile data business then known as Genie Internet, which was also a subsidiary of BT Group.

The original O2 group was formed when BT Group demerged the above businesses as part of a plan to strengthen the capital position of shareholders following declining telecommunications industry valuations in the late 1990s. The companies involved in the demerger (which took place on 17 November 2001) were BT Cellnet (which became O2 UK), Esat Digifone (which became O2 Ireland), Viag Interkom (which became O2 Germany), Telfort (which became O2 Netherlands), Manx Telecom (Isle of Man), O2 Airwave (UK) and Genie Internet (which split into O2 Online and O2 Asia). After a five year period of independence (during which it disposed of its subsidiary in Netherlands to a private equity company which reverted it to the Telfort brand) the O2 group was acquired by Telefónica of Spain on 23 January 2006 in what was described at that time as the biggest all-cash takeover in the history of the telecommunications industry [http://cnbceb.com/2006/01/01/breath/].

New to the O2 group following the acquisition by Telefónica was Český Telecom and Eurotel (which were already part of the Telefónica group and later merged and branded to become Telefónica O2 Czech Republic) and Telefónica Deutschland (a Germany-based DSL business that was later merged with O2 Germany). Additionally, in 2006 O2 UK acquired a UK-based DSL broadband startup called Be Unlimited [http://www.bethere.co.uk/] and the O2 group won a tender to become the 3rd mobile phone operator in Slovakia, forming a company trading as Telefónica O2 Slovakia. In 2007, the group disposed of O2 Airwave to a subsidiary of Australia's Macquarie investment group.

By 31 March 2007 the company had 35.9 million mobile customers in the UK, Germany, Ireland and Czech Republic, 1.3 million DSL customers in Germany and Czech Republic and 3.4 million fixed line telephony customers in Czech Republic. [http://www.o2.com/media_files/PR0710_Q1_2007.pdf]

The O2 group is headquartered in the UK where it has major offices in Slough (group and UK headquarters), Bury, Glasgow, Leeds, and Preston Brook. The Irish Headquarters are in Dublin, German headquarters in Munich, Czech headquarters in Prague, Slovak headquarters in Bratislava and Manx headquarters in Douglas on the Isle of Man. It has several hundred national retail outlets across these countries offering mobile phone, fixed telephony and broadband DSL products. In addition O2 Asia, which is headquartered in Singapore, operates in Far East, South Asia, Middle East and Australasian countries, principally developing and selling a range of wirelessly connected PDA and smartphone products branded Xda.