Three to Buy O2 Next Year, Predicts CCS
- Monday, November 18th, 2013
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CCS Insight has predicted that Hutchison Whampoa, owner of the UK operator 3, will next year acquire O2, as parent company Telefonica attempts to cuts its €46.1bn (£38.6bn) debt.
Theres certainly precedent for this kind of deal – in Ireland, 3 bought out O2 back in June. And its not the only big acquisition coming next year, according to the analysts set of annual technology and telecoms predictions.
CCS also believes that in 2014 Yahoo will acquire Flipboard and Pinterest, while Twitter will use money raised by its IPO to buy Snapchat. The latter would be particularly surprising, given that Snapchat is reported to have rejected a $3bn acquisition offer from Facebook – an amount significantly higher than the $1.8bn raised by Twitters IPO.
Looking forward to 2015, the predictions also include a merger between France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom, public wi-fi usage in the UK reaching its peak as 4G becomes the norm, and a ruling from the European Commission that will force companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft to stop bundling hardware and software due to anticompetitiveness.