• Vodafone Romania officially joins forces with UPC
• The joint teams can now work together to design best-in-class solutions and services for the Romanian customers

Vodafone Romania and UPC close the acquisition process, following the European Commission’s approval in July of Vodafone Group’s acquisition of Liberty Global’s operations in Romania, Germany, Czech Republic and Hungary in a €18.4 billion transaction.

The finalisation of the transaction represents a new journey for both Vodafone Romania and UPC as, from now on, the two companies are not competitors anymore. The joint team has now the opportunity to work together to design best-in-class solutions and a complete portfolio of communication services for the Romanian customers.

This acquisition, one of the most significant in the telecom industry in Romania, will bring two teams together that will work to develop seamless products for citizens, businesses and other social and economic actors. The expertise in mobile services of Vodafone Romania employees and the proficiency of UPC specialists in TV and fixed services will translate into an even higher quality communications services provider and one of the most desired employers in Romania.

Murielle Lorilloux, CEO Vodafone Romania, stated: “This transformative acquisition is creating a significant partner of converged telecoms services bringing more value to our customers and creating an improved ascending path for Romania’s digital economy. It also translates in a very good opportunity to challenge the dominant positions of electronic communications sector. The employees from both UPC and Vodafone have an unmatched premieres history on the local market, and even in Europe.  I am confident that their combined expertise and proficiency will lead to new firsts and innovation in products that will have as the most important beneficiaries the Romanian consumers”.

Vodafone has a 22 years history in Romania. Along its history on the local market, the operator has been investing in innovation, being the first to provide GPRS (2001), then 3G (2005) and 4G services (2012). The first Call Center Service (1997), the first corporate foundation (1998), the launch of short message service - SMS - or data and fax services (1998), the first automatic speech recognition service (2014), the first NB-IoT live network (2018) and the first 5G services (2019) are among the premieres marked by Vodafone Romania on the local telecommunications market.

UPC Romania has over 25 years presence on the local market. The company has always been investing in technology and innovation offering television services, broadband Internet and telephony through superior networks and innovative technology platforms. UPC's premieres in the Romanian market include the launch of digital television, DVR (2008), HD (2009), 3D (2011) and high-speed internet (2013). UPC Romania offers superior speeds of up to 500 Mbps across the range, the best Wi-Fi experience with the Connect Box modem (since 2015) and unlimited entertainment through the latest Horizon video platform (2016).

Vodafone Romania is a subsidiary of Vodafone Group. Vodafone Group has mobile operations in 24 countries, partners with mobile networks in 42 more, and fixed broadband operations in 19 markets. As of 30 June 2019, Vodafone Group had approximately 640 million mobile customers, 21 million fixed broadband customers and 14 million TV customers, including all of the customers in Vodafone’s joint ventures and associates. For more information, please visit: www.vodafone.com.