The EU’s competition authority has set a deadline of July 2nd to decide whether to give its approval to Vodafone’s acquisition of Spanish cable provider Ono for €7.2 billion, including debt.

The deal is expected to get the green light as the merger don’t represent a major consolidation in terms of market share both in fixed bandwidth and in mobile.

With the acquisition of Ono, Vodafone would have a 21 per cent share in the broadband market with around 2.4 million users and 26 per cent in mobile with 13.5 million mobile users. The agreement with Ono has allowed Vodafone to break into the TV market again with around 900,000 pay-TV subscribers.

Vodafone will be able to offer convergent packages (with fixed and mobile telephony, fixed and mobile broadband and pay TV services) and compete head-to-head with Telefonica, the dominant player.

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