Wind and 3 Italia look set to merge after their parent companies this week confirmed they are holding tie-up talks.
After months of speculation, Hutchison Whampoa and Vimpelcom on Wednesday issued separate statements announcing that they are working on an eq ual joint venture to bring together their Italian service providers.
According to various media reports the firms failed to broker a deal last year due to a disagreement over the ownership structure of the merged entity; Vimpelcom was said to be seeking a 50:50 joint venture while Hutchison wanted to have control.
In March new reports emerged that a deal was once again in the offing. At the time the Financial Times cited unnamed sources as saying that the companies were close to reaching an agreement that would allow Hutchison to be the dominant partner. It now appears that those sources were incorrect.
As is customary though, both companies on Wednesday noted that there is no guarantee their negotiations will culminate in a deal.
Should a deal be forthcoming, the merged entity would become Italy’s largest mobile operator, jumping ahead of market leader TIM and number two operator Vodafone.
According to the latest figures from regulator AGCOM, Wind and 3 Italia together had a market share of 33.6% at the end of 2014, compared with TIM’s 32.2% and Vodafone’s 27.1%. The figures do not include the operators’ customers served through MVNOs; virtual players together served 7.1% of the market at the same date.
Wind is Italy’s second largest fixed-line player behind the incumbent. It had a fixed-line telephony market share of 13.2% at the end of last year. On the fixed broadband side, Wind’s market share stood at 15.4%.
