Crown (telecommunications)

Crown Cellular plc (colloquially known as Crown, stylized as CROWN; formerly traded as The O2 Company) is a British multinational public holding company formed in August 27, 2020, to hold telecommunications assets sold by Styhon Battersea to prevent antitrust violations. Almost all shares are owned by Kasperi Salovaara, who is also the co-founder and a shareholder of Styhon Battersea, through his company Lotus.

As of January 2021, the company has three main brands: its primary brand O2 (under which they also own giffgaff, both formerly owned by Telefonica UK) worldwide, SoftBank in Japan, and Telia in Sweden, Norway and Finland. Another brand of theirs, Vodafone, is set to be discontinued or sold in the near future.

Spin-off of O2
In 2020, after many negotiations with governments, shareholders and regulators, Styhon Battersea successfully acquired, , , , , 's mobile network operations, and , along with additional companies such as Wtfast.

Among the acquisitions, the acquisitions of Telefónica, Vodafone and CK Hutchison resulted in them gaining the UK telecom market share of 65% (counting Tesco Mobile's 6% share). During the acquisition process, Styhon Battersea discussed a spin-off of certain assets with the British, German and Irish governments to prevent a duopoly in the countries.

Vodafone Italy (merged with ​Iliad Italia​), Vodafone Spain and 3 Austria (merged with Czech Telecom Austria GmbH) were sold to Crown Cellular and rebranded under O2 by December 2020; Tele2 Germany, sold with O2 Germany, merged with Czech Telecom Germany GmbH into O2 by that time as well.

In November 2020, Hoot, Crown and Viettel decided to merge their Asian operations into O2 Asia Pacific. The deal does not include Three in Hong Kong and Macau, SoftBank in Japan, or Viettel in Vietnam. To make up for the merger, Hoot sold off Telstra's 30% stake in ​Sensis​, while transferring their 35% stake in Foxtel to O2 Australia.

O2 was announced to launch in Serbia in January 2021, after A1 Serbia (formed out of a merger between Vip mobile and Telenor Serbia) was set to partially split in a way that would allow at least 15% of the Serbian telecom market share to go to a new telecom (out of the 55% market share owned by A1 Serbia at the moment). O2 will also launch in Ukraine, as of result of O2's acquisitions of ​Kyivstar​ and TriMob.

Vodafone Ireland and Telenor Bulgaria were transferred from Styhon Battersea to Oliver Watson's OWL Ventures, who then struck a deal with Crown to relaunch them under the O2 brand by mid-February 2021.

Styhon Battersea Telecom/Crown merger
Around mid-2021, during OWL Ventures's IPO, Styhon Battersea and Crown started a "silent merger" into their majority owner Vuori, with Crown becoming the surviving division solely dedicated to the "telecoms" industry. As of result, Crown gained its own division for operations in Asia, Oceania, the Middle East and Africa, which it would rebrand as O2 by the end of 2021, with the exception of a few brands.

Along with the merger, Vuori acquired, from whom Crown subsequently acquired the telecommunications solutions and electronics departments, and merged it with , Telenor Common Operation (Hungary), , , and  to form Crown Enterprise Solutions, which is also in charge of making O2 branded ADSL and OTT boxes.

A1 (in ​​Belarus​, ​Croatia​, ​Macedonia​ and ​Slovenia​; owned through A1 Telekom Austria Group​) was immediately integrated into O2 during the merger, with ​Proximus Group​ (with Proximus,​ ​Scarlet​ and ​Tango), ​Liberty Global​, the newly-reacquired Tele2 Croatia,, ​Hey​, ​Telenor Hungary​, Telenor Montenegro,​ O2 Slovakia, Tele2 (in ​Russia​, Latvia and Lithuania), Beeline (in Russia, Armenia and Georgia), ​​Play​, ​ (in Switzerland, Poland​ and Slovakia), ​Tele2 Sweden​, Hi3G Access AB (3 Sweden), Tre (Hi3G Denmark ApS) and Sunrise​.

Vodafone (in Romania, Albania, ​Turkey and Portugal) and Epic (formerly Vodafone Malta) followed suit. Swisscom FL was acquired and turned into O2 Liechtenstein, a JV with Swisscom. Vodafone Greece and merged to form O2 Greece. and ​Free​ (with Free Infrastructure & ​Free Mobile)​ merged to become O2 France, while Cytamobile-Vodafone became O2 Cyprus. San Marino Telecom, Telefonia Mobile Sammarinese and Telenet SrL merged to become O2 San Marino. The Estonian operations of Elisa and Tele2 were merged to form O2 Estonia. and Vodafone Iceland merged to form O2 Iceland. Mtel Bosnia and Herzegovina​ became O2 BH. MTS Kosovo and merged to become O2 Kosovo. Ice (formerly owned by Access Industries) became O2 Norway. Bakcell, and AzerTelecom merged to form O2 Azerbaijan.

Lycamobile merged its operations into O2 in UK, Russia, France, Spain, Austria, Norway, North Macedonia, Ukraine, Italy, Belgium, Romania, Poland, Portugal, Ireland, Switzerland and Germany. Also, 3 Group Europe, ​Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holdings​ and ​Hutchison Asia Telecom Group​ were merged entirely into Crown Cellular plc; Three in Hong Kong and Macau, and Wind Tre in Italy were spun off into a new unit in Hoot called Three Holdings B.V. in Amsterdam, while Three in UK and Ireland became part of Vodafone Three plc.

​Airtel-Vodafone​ and ​Sure​ merged to form O2 Channel Islands, with operations also in the Isle of Man. Andorra Telecom was acquired by Crown and rebranded as O2 Andorra, now a joint venture between Crown and the government of Andorra.

On January 1, 2021, Crown sold its stake in O2 India to Qualis Telecom. Crown will still license the brand.

On January 2, 2021, Illustrious, owner of Hoot Telecom, announced spin off of its non-US/Canada assets. That day, Crown Cellular won the bids on Hoot Ireland (including Virgin Media), VodafoneZiggo, SoftBank, Hot Mobile, Salt Mobile (with 7acht in Liechtenstein), O2 Bulgaria (ex-Telenor Bulgaria), and their stakes in KPN, Turk Telecom and Telecom Serbia. Crown also acquired all of the former Illiad SA assets and Hoot Telecom's 50% stake in O2 Asia-Pacific, except in India, where Hoot still co-owns O2 India, a licensee. In exchange of O2 Asia Pacific, Hoot Telecom received a majority stake in Jio Platforms from Kasperi Salovaara.

On the same day, BH Telecom merged into O2 BH, with the Bosnia/Herzegovina government becoming a majority shareholder; while m:tel merged into O2 Montenegro, amd Turkcell's Life:) in Belarus and Lifecell in Ukraine merged into O2 Belarus and O2 Ukraine respectively. Crown also acquired Bite Group from Providence Equity Partners, and merged into both O2 Lithuania and O2 Latvia.

On January 4th, 2021, Crown announced that antitrust regulators have approved its acquisition of Polish companies Polkomtel and Cyfrowy Polsat. It's set to be finished by the end of Q2 2021. Polkomtel was a fellow member of Lycamobile Transform Holdings JV. That same day, Crown Cellular finalized its move from Vuori, which was in process of being merged into Illustrious, into Salovaara's new company Lotus.

On January 27th, 2021, Crown announced a restructuring of its SoftBank division. Its subsidiaries SBTM ONLINE (SUZHOU) CO., LTD., Softbank Group International Japan Co., Ltd., STARFISH I PTE LTD., Softbank Group International Japan Co., Ltd., SB Telecom Singapore Pte. Ltd., SB Telecom (Thailand) Co., Ltd., SBTelecom China (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., SoftBank Telecom India Pvt. Ltd., PT. SoftBank Telecom Indonesia, SoftBank Telecom Vietnam Co., Ltd. were all merged into O2 Asia-Pacific, with holdings moved into a new company within Lotus, called Lotus AO Corporation.

Merger between Telia Company and Crown
On January 21st, 2021, Crown Cellular and Telia Company announced a "merger of equals" - despite the fact that Crown was expanding rapidly by the time of the announcement - allowing Telia's operations outside of core areas: Sweden, Norway and Finland; to move under Crown's management, while vice versa happened for Crown's operations in these areas. Telia's operations in Denmark and the Baltics merged into O2.

The deal was approved by the EU and Swedish authorities, on the condition that the Swedish government - Telia's largest shareholder - were to hold stake in the Nordic operations, under a joint venture O2 Nordic, between Crown and TC Holding Sverige AB (the Swedish government's "temporary entity").

Virgin Media-O2 merger
On 7 May 2020, it was announced that Telefónica had agreed to merge Telefónica UK with Liberty Global subsidiary Virgin Media, subject to approval, into a 50/50 joint venture. If the deal is approved, the merger will be completed by the middle of 2021.

The deal was put on hold temporarily during Styhon Battersea's sale of O2 (which was inherited from its acquisition of Telefónica), but Salovaara, Crown's CEO, affirmed that the merger talks were still happening with Liberty Global.

Proposed acquisition of Vodafone New Zealand
After O2 Asia-Pacific was formed, Crown announced to start retiring the Vodafone brand and rebranding their operations under Orange in Africa and O2 elsewhere. This has prompted O2 New Zealand (formerly 2degrees) to negotiate a takeover of from private equity companies, in order to successfully finish the Vodafone brand's discontinuation.

Europe
O2 is operated in Europe by Crown Cellular plc, except in Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Montenegro, Estonia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Cyprus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Malta, where they operate as joint ventures, and in Bulgaria, where it's franchised to Illustrious's telecom division Hoot.

A minor exception is Spain, which was launched in 2018 as a MVNO, and operated as such until 2020 when Vodafone Spain and the O2 Spain MVNO merged to become a fully fledged operator.

Another exception is the area including Sweden, Norway and Finland, where it's known as Telia and is run under O2 Nordic AB, a joint venture between Crown and the Swedish government's legal entity TC Holding Sverige AB. In addition of O2, Crown Cellular plc also operates under a 50/50 joint venture with. Crown also operates a MVNO under their own network, called. They rebranded Proximus TV as O2 TV in Belgium during the Styhon Battersea Telecom/Crown merger.

They also have a venture capital division Crown Initiatives (formerly Bouygues Telecom Initiatives), a R&D center called O2 Innovation Center (formerly Telenet Innovation Center), a 49% stake each in both and LMT, a 25% stake in ​T-Mobile Netherlands​, and a 49% stake in the Swiss company e-Fon AG. Since 2021, they also own VodafoneZiggo (including Ziggo and Vodafone Netherlands), Virgin Media Ireland​ and Virgin Mobile Ireland.

O2 also runs Lycamobile Transform Holdings JV with Hoot Telecom (which owns Telenet, Telstra and Orange Germany (ex-Vodafone Germany)), TDC, Three Ireland, Swisscom, and Telekom Romania, established to help transfer customers from Lycamobile to O2.

O2 also owns stakes in these joint ventures:


 * - ex-Yugoslavia; branded as MTS, 50/50 joint venture with the Serbian government
 * Mondo.rs - news portal
 * MTS Banka
 * - 16.1% stake; Netherlands, integrated with Lycamobile Netherlands and Ortel Mobile
 * Yes Telecom
 * KPN Winkel - retail stores
 * - Netherlands
 * - Turkey; 65/5/30 joint venture with Türk Telekom's creditors and the Treasury of Turkey
 * - game development studio
 * (76% stake held with Çalik Group) - Albania
 * (76% stake held with Çalik Group) - Albania

Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa
Crown owns a 34% stake in Orange Africa, which operates in Middle East and Africa. They have an office in Johannesburg, which is responsible for holding the stake and running the company from their side.

O2 Asia-Pacific came to be through a merger of Viettel Global, and Asian operations owned by Hoot (who acquired early on) and Crown. It is a joint venture between Hoot and Crown, with Viettel being part of four joint ventures within O2 Asia-Pacific. Crown is considering rebranding all acquired operations under the O2 brand by the end of 2021. They have offices in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait City, Hong Kong and Delhi.

They operate the following branches of O2 Asia-Pacific: O2 Brunei owns:


 * Kristal-Astro - joint venture with Astro Malaysia
 * Kristal Media Sdn Bhd - radio station division
 * KristalFM

O2 Asia-Pacific also owns Digicel Sports, a 35% stake in ​Telkomsel​, a 55% stake in ​Telenor Microfinance Bank​, a 23% stake in AIS, a 75% stake in Koryolink​​, and a minority stake in Globe Telecom. They also own two MVNOs: Virgin Mobile in Australia; and O2 Prioritas in Indonesia, the latter which is a merger between 3 Indonesia's postpaid services and XL Prioritas.

O2 Asia-Pacific also now owns O2 Thailand (formerly SB Telecom (Thailand) Co., Ltd.) and O2 China (merger between SBTM ONLINE (SUZHOU) CO., LTD., SBTelecom China (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.). The Thai branch is planning to expand into a full quad-play operator within the country, while O2 China seeks to assist Crown's partner China Unicom.

They license their Vodafone brand (inherited from Styhon Battersea's acquisition of Vodafone Group) to, and they have a deal to license it until either Crown acquires the company or until the brand is "forcefully retired".

They have strategic alliances with ​China Unicom​, ​Gibtelecom​​,, , , Telecom Argentina, Elisa, and ​TELE Greenland​; as well as with Eclipse Group's Qualis Telecom (in France, Russia, Armenia, Denmark and Monaco) and Illustrious's Hoot Telecom (in Dominican Republic and Canada).

SoftBank

 * - Japan; integrated with, RBJ Corporation, SB Media Holdings, Softbank Group International Japan Co., Ltd. and Shiodome Z Holdings
 * SB C&S - manufactures, distributes and sells SoftBank branded IT-related products
 * Orange Labs Asia - Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea; technology incubator, formerly SB Technology
 * Wireless City Planning (32.2%) - planning and provision of mobile broadband services
 * Fontworks - font planning and development
 * Orange Security Asia (75%) - formerly Cybertrust
 * Asoratech Co Ltd (51%)
 * Reden (66%)
 * SB Human Capital - operation of online employment information site
 * ECareer
 * ECareer FA
 * ECareer NEXTFIELD
 * Cariok
 * Realize Mobile Communications Corp - planning, design, operation of mobile solutions; planning, production and distribution of mobile content; outsourcing related to the mobile business; mobile commerce business; and consulting services regarding the mobile business
 * (~53%)
 * NC Japan - joint venture with Krafton Pearl Abyss
 * Vector (42.2%) - video game retail
 * Willcom Okinawa Co., Ltd. (84%)
 * SB Mobile Service Co., Ltd.
 * SB Engineering Co., Ltd.
 * HAPS Mobile Co., Ltd. (92.9%)
 * SB At Work Co., Ltd.
 * SB Ad Co., Ltd. (formerly Shiodome Agency Co., Ltd.) (100%)
 * SB Gift Co., Ltd.
 * SB Partners Co., Ltd. (100%)
 * SB Power Co., Ltd. (100%)
 * SB Players Co., Ltd. (100%)
 * Odds Park Co., Ltd. (100%)
 * Tabirizu Co., Ltd. (100%)
 * Satoful Co., Ltd. (100%)
 * Tanemaki Co., Ltd.
 * Eduas Co., Ltd. (100%)
 * Every sync Co., Ltd.- a joint venture of SoftBank Corp. and video research
 * Nippon Computer Vision Co., Ltd.
 * BBIX Corporation
 * BB Satellite Co., Ltd. (100%)
 * BB Backbone Co., Ltd.
 * Beaune Co., Ltd. (63%)
 * BOLDLY Co., Ltd. (SBG company-wide 99.7%)
 * mice platform inc.
 * MagicalMove Inc. (100%)
 * SB Telecom America Corp.
 * SoftBank Telecom Europe Ltd.
 * Saijinia Co., Ltd. (32.1%) [Higashima: 6031]
 * T-point Japan Co., Ltd. (34.0%)
 * MONET Technologies Co., Ltd. (35.2%)
 * Fukuoka Softbank Hawks Co., Ltd. (100%)
 * SB Energy Co., Ltd. (100%)
 * Boston Dynamics, Inc. - Mobile robot design and development
 * SoftBank Robotics Group Co., Ltd. (formerly SoftBank Robotics Holdings ) (74.5%)
 * Softbank Robotics Co., Ltd.
 * SoftBank Robotics Europe SAS (formerly Aldebaran Robotics )
 * SoftBank Robotics America, INC.
 * Rolling Machine (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.
 * Asratec Corporation (100%)
 * SoftBank Ventures Asia Corp. (100% indirect ownership) -Fund management in Asia
 * SoftBank Korea Corp. (100%) -Holding company
 * Hayate Corporation (100%)
 * Foxconn Ventures Pte. Ltd. (36.4%) (Changed from SOFTBANK GROUP CAPITAL APAC PTE. LTD.)- Joint venture with Foxconn
 * Renren Inc. (38.9%) [NYSE: RENN]-A company that invests in a company that operates a human network.
 * HIKE GLOBAL PTE. LTD.
 * SBG Managers LLC (formerly Shiodome Business No. 12 LLC)
 * SOFTBANK Holdings Inc. (100%)
 * SoftBank Capital
 * SoftBank America Inc. (100%)
 * Softbank Group Capital Europe Limited
 * Classi Co., Ltd. (50%) - A joint venture of Benesse Holdings and SoftBank Corp.
 * SB Logistics Co., Ltd. (formerly Shiodome Business No. 7 Co., Ltd.) (100%)
 * Cyber ​​University Co., Ltd. (100%)
 * Deep Core Co., Ltd. (formerly Shiodome Business No. 4 Co., Ltd.) (100%)
 * SB Power Management Co., Ltd.
 * Bloom Energy Japan Co., Ltd. (50%)
 * BM & Research Institute, Inc. (change from broad media Research Institute) - Yoshimoto Kogyo Holdings of equity holdings
 * Amuse 2.0 Co., Ltd.
 * Artemis Corporation
 * Shiodome Estate Co., Ltd.
 * Shiodome Finance Co., Ltd.
 * Shiodome Leasing Co., Ltd.
 * Shiodome Mobile Co., Ltd.
 * Triangle G Co., Ltd. (formerly Shiodome Business No. 8 Co., Ltd.)
 * Shiodome Business No. 9 GK
 * TSX Investment LLC (formerly Shiodome Business No. 10 LLC)
 * Shiodome Business No. 11 GK
 * Triangle M Co., Ltd. (formerly Shiodome Business No. 13 Co., Ltd.)
 * Windsor Finance Co., Ltd. (formerly Shiodome Business No. 14 Co., Ltd.)
 * Shiodome Business No. 16 GK
 * Shiodome Business No. 17 GK
 * Shiodome Business No. 18 GK
 * Shiodome Business No. 19 GK
 * Shiodome Business No. 20 Co., Ltd.
 * Shiodome Business No. 19 GK
 * Shiodome Business No. 20 Co., Ltd.

Latin America
O2 Latin America is a telecommunications provider in the Caribbean and Latin America, owned by Crown with its foundation finished in December 2020. It was founded through a merger of Scarlet's Latin American operations (Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten), Movistar's operations in Latin America, as well as mobile operators Digicel, Tigo, Entel and Liberty Latin America.

It's the most leading operator across most countries it serves, with it holding second place in Bermuda, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana, Nicaragua and Suriname, rivaling and state-owned telecoms.

O2 Latin America does not operate in Cuba or the Dominican Republic. Their subsidiaries include O2 Latin America Business (a consolidation of Liberty Latin America's B2B operations), Digicel Sports and Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico. In addition, O2 Latin America aslo runs MVNOs on its own network:  outside Spain under license from Styhon Battersea, as well as, outside Mexico and Brasil, which became a joint venture with Virgin Group as an extension of their contract.

Lunar
Lunar is a smartphone brand owned by Crown Cellular.

With the acquisition of some of Vodafone's European operations, they received patents and development staff related to their Vodafone Smart line of smartphones and IoT electronics. Crown also acquired assets of, for future R&D projects.

With these acquisitions, Crown decided to start development on a smartphone to be exclusively sold in retail locations operating under Orange in Africa and Middle East, SoftBank in Japan, Telstra in Australia, Rogers in Canada, Verizon in the United States, and O2 in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Lunar Alliance
Crown established the Lunar Alliance, which would start work on the research and development on Lunar Onyx One, the Lunar OS (based on Android) and Lunar Mobile Services.

Lunar Alliance aims to open a privacy-focused but still developer-friendly system out of, with the help from several Android fork development teams and foundations such as , as well as the "perfect smartphone" for consumers, especially that of Crown's telecom division O2.

With Crown's sister companies' expertise (such as Duracell on batteries), Vuori has also initiated cross-company collaboration under the alliance.

A legal battle between Crown and Google (et al) prompted the Lunar Alliance to pursue marketing the device as a "device for the misfits", criticizing, among other cons, Apple's lack of customization and Android's reputation for bloatware and vulnerability. Epic Games's participation in the legal battle also opened doors for a possibility of Fortnite becoming exclusive to Lunar OS.

Special edition products
Lunar Onyx One has numerous color variants named and modeled after gemstones (except for the white variant), mainly as exclusives to respective telecoms that sell them: rhodolite magenta for T-Mobile, citrine orange for Orange, platinum white with glossy finish for SoftBank, ruby red for Rogers and Verizon (the red variant is also available in other stores under the Product Red initiative) and zircon blue for O2. The emerald green and amethyst purple variants were made exclusively for Hoot and OWL employees only.

Lunar Onyx One also had a Coca-Cola themed variant sold in Latin America and Asia, especially Mexico, Brazil and Japan.

As part of the Vuorensuu project, Lunar announced a sweepstake with two variants; the iridescent variant (inspired by black opal and bismuth) would be sent to 185 winners, while the golden variant would be sent to 15 winners with tours to Vuorensuu once it finishes construction.

Legality status
Due to the establishment and purpose of the consortium, Crown has been in a legal battle with Google and the remaining members of  (Broadcom, Telus, Nepal Telecom, VisualOn, eBay, Omron, PacketVideo, AKM Semiconductor, Garmin, Acer, Lenovo, MiPS, Renesas, ST Microelectronics, Wind River, NEC and Wipro) on numerous cases, such as the legal statuses of the Lunar Mobile Services and Lunar OS concepts. Soon, Crown was joined by Amazon, Kyocera, Foxconn/Sharp, Hoot, Tencent, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Facebook, Samsung, Huawei and Epic Games.

Features
Lunar Onyx One is rumored to have an infrared spectrometer and a thermal camera.

Future
Lunar has yet to release Onyx One and Jade smartphones, but Crown and Hoot are optimistic about the brand's future. Crown has mentioned about plans to expand the brand into smart watches and smart glasses, if the management of both PTG and its parent company Vuori allows so. Lunar will prioritize third-world countries over others in terms of low pricing and marketing.

Members
The memberships of China Unicom and China Mobile are still pending due to the uncertain trading ties between the U.S. and China. Nintendo became part of the Lunar Alliance through a partnership between them and Vuori, which would see Mario games get optimized for the Lunar Onyx One.

Crown Enterprise Solutions

 * Crown International Carrier - international carrier division
 * Telia Carrier - Tier 1 international carrier
 * Technicolor USA
 * Telia Finance
 * - consulting division

Crown (corporate)

 * "Here and there too" (2020-present)

O2

 * "See what you can do" (2006-2008)
 * "It's your O2" (2006-2008)
 * "We’re better, connected" (2008-2013)
 * "Be more dog" (2013-2016)
 * "More for you" (2016-2018)
 * "Breathe it all in" (2018-2020)
 * "Breathtaking" (2020-present)