The proposed tie-up, announced in June last year, is aimed at creating Britain's biggest mobile operator with 27 million customers and to accelerate rollout of faster 5G connectivity.
In a statement Friday, the Competition and Markets Authority said it "will assess how this tie-up between rival networks could impact competition".
The planned transaction sees British giant Vodafone taking 51 percent of the combined group and CK Hutchison the rest.
The pair have a target value of �16.5 billion ($21 billion) for the new group, above the �15 billion they were worth when announced in June.
"This deal would bring together two of the major players in the UK telecommunications market, which is critical to millions of everyday customers, businesses and the wider economy," added CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell.
The merger, if approved, will vault the combined operations above the country's two largest mobile operators BT EE and Virgin Media O2 in terms of customer numbers.
Expansion of 5G across the UK has meanwhile been hampered by Britain's ban on Chinese giant Huawei, a major supplier of equipment for mobile telephone networks.
"We strongly believe that the proposed merger of Vodafone and Three will significantly enhance competition by creating a combined business with more resources to invest in infrastructure," Vodafone UK chief executive Ahmed Essam said in response to the CMA announcement.
- Vodafone rings changes -
Vodafone as a whole is led by chief executive Margherita Della Valle, who is carrying out significant changes at the group.
In late 2023, she announced the sale of the group's Spanish division to investment fund Zegona for up to 5.0 billion euros ($5.4 billion).
It followed her decision last year to axe 11,000 jobs, or more than ten percent of Vodafone's global workforce, to slash costs.
The global tech sector shed tens of thousands of jobs in 2023, including by Facebook parent Meta and UK telecoms group BT, as soaring inflation weakened the economy.
That has continued into the new year, with Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica laying off up to 3,421 jobs, or one-fifth of its domestic workforce, as tech companies face also large investment costs linked to the development of artificial intelligence.
Friday's announcement by the CMA comes after the UK government this week said Emerati telecoms group e& -- Vodafone's largest shareholder with 14.6 percent of the group -- posed a risk to British national security.
bcp/rfj/rl
Related Links
Satellite-based Internet technologies
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
