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The merger, which was first announced in June 2022, was finally approved earlier this year
According to a report from Spanish business newspaper El Economista, Spanish operators Orange and MasMovil are set to name their newly consolidated business ‘MasOrange’.
Both Orange Spain and MásMóvil have declined to comment on the name’s revelation, with the Spanish paper’s sources claiming that an official unveiling of the new branding will come after Easter.
The merger of Orange Spain and MasMovil, worth €18.6 billion, was approved by the European Commission (EC) in February this year, following a lengthy investigation by regulatory bodies.
This investigation sought to overcome concerns that the transaction would restrict market competition by creating the largest operator in Spain (in terms of customers) and reducing the number of players in the market from four to three.
The newly combined MasOrange will serve over 30 million mobile subscribers and almost 8 million fixed broadband customers.
In order to counterbalance the newly merged company’s dominant market position, the EC required MasMovil to divest of 60MHz spectrum assets to local operator Digi, as well as providing the latter with a new roaming agreement. This, the regulators suggest, should allow Digi to grow rapidly to become a new fourth national operator in the Spanish market.
The deal’s approval marked a notable shift in regulatory attitude within Europe, a fact that Kester Mann, Director of Consumer and Connectivity at CCS Insight, suggests will now turn the spotlight on the Vodafone and Three mrgeer in the UK. Just this week, a second phase of an investigation by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) was confirmed, after an initial investigation found unresolved competition concerns.
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