Three Ireland is the country\u2019s second-largest mobile operator, with almost a 28pc share of the mobile voice subscriber market, according to the latest data from telecoms watchdog ComReg. Vodafone is the biggest, with 32.5pc, while Eir is third, with 24.4pc.<\/p>\n
Virgin Media already operates as a so-called virtual network operator in Ireland, offering mobile services to its own customers via Three\u2019s network. However, Virgin Media has just a tiny customer base in Ireland, with a 2.4pc share of the voice-mobile market.<\/p>\n
Were Liberty Global to buy the Three Ireland company, it would significantly scale up its customer base, offering an opportunity to directly market TV and broadband services to existing Three Ireland customers.<\/p>\n
Talks to acquire Three Ireland are reportedly at an advanced stage, according to a report in the Financial Times.<\/p>\n
Three Ireland declined to comment. \u201cWe have no comment to make on market speculation,\u201d said a spokesman for Liberty Global.<\/p>\n
Three Ireland is owned by CK Hutchison, a Hong Kong-based conglomerate. It has been selling mobile assets in Europe amid dwindling returns.<\/p>\n
Last year, the chief executive of Liberty Global, Mark Fries, told a conference the company was interested in buying a mobile asset in Ireland in the future.<\/p>\n
In 2020, Liberty Global merged its Virgin Media business in the UK with Telefonica\u2019s O2 arm there, in a 50-50 venture. At the time, Liberty Global said it would create a \u201cstronger fixed and mobile competitor\u201d in the market.<\/p>\n
The following year there was speculation that Liberty Global \u2013 whose biggest shareholder is billionaire John Malone \u2013 was looking to sell Virgin Media Ireland for about \u20ac1.5bn. Mr Malone has extensive property interests in Ireland.<\/p>\n
CK Hutchison Holdings is currently eyeing a potential joint stock market listing of its international telecoms business, in London and Hong Kong.<\/p>\n
Liberty Global acquired Virgin Media in 2013 in a $24bn deal. At the time that gave it a customer base of 25 million people across 12 European countries.<\/p>\n
Telecoms firm UPC Ireland became part of Virgin Media in the UK in 2014. UPC was rebranded as Virgin Media the following year.<\/p>\n
Virgin Media\u2019s residential, business and mobile units in Ireland generated revenue of \u20ac366.6m in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three Ireland is the country\u2019s second-largest mobile operator, with almost a 28pc share of the mobile voice subscriber…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,10099,43],"class_list":["post-254495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-john-mulligan","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}