Crown (telecommunications)

Crown Cellular plc (formerly The O2 Company) is a British 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 Vuori.

As of December 2020, its only brand is O2 (though they also own giffgaff), formerly owned by Telefonica UK.

Spin-off of O2
In 2020, Styhon Battersea successfully acquired,  and , which would result 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.

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​,​ O2 Slovakia, Tele2 (in ​Russia​, Latvia and Lithuania), Beeline (in Russia, Armenia and Georgia), ​​Play​, ​ (in Switzerland, Poland​ and Slovakia), ​Tele2​, Hi3G Access AB (3 Sweden), Tre (Hi3G Denmark ApS) and Sunrise​.

Vodafone (in Romania, Albania, ​Turkey and Portugal) 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, 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.

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.

Europe
O2 is operated in Europe by Crown Cellular plc, except in Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Cyprus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Malta, where they operate as joint ventures, and in Bulgaria and Ireland, where it's franchised to OWL Ventures'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. 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 25% stake in ​T-Mobile Netherlands​, and a 49% stake in the Swiss company e-Fon AG.

O2 also runs Lycamobile Transform Holdings JV with Telenet, Polkomtel (Plus), Three Ireland, Swisscom, Orange Germany (ex-Vodafone) and Telekom Romania, established to help transfer customers from Lycamobile to O2.

Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa
They have a close partnership with OWL Ventures's Hoot division in Japan (through SoftBank), Dominican Republic (Altice, now Claro) and Canada (Rogers). Crown is considering rebranding most acquired operations under the O2 brand by the end of 2021. They have offices in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait City, Hong Kong, Delhi and Johannesburg.

They operate the following brands and subsidiaries: They have strategic alliances with ​China Unicom​, ​Gibtelecom​, ​Andorra Telecom​, Telecom Argentina, SFR, Elisa, MTS Russia, Viva MTS, TDC A/S, FSM Telecom (Federated States of Micronesia), Monaco Telecom​, and ​TELE Greenland​.
 * - Hong Kong and Macau; 50/50 joint venture with
 * O2 Bhutan - 50/50 joint venture with ; formerly called TashiCell
 * O2 Turkmenistan - 50/50 joint venture with ; merger between TM Cell and
 * O2 Brunei - formerly DST, integrated with DSTIncomm, DST Solutions and DSTFascom
 * Kristal-Astro - joint venture with Astro Malaysia
 * Kristal Media Sdn Bhd - radio station division
 * KristalFM
 * ​Celcom​ - Malaysia
 * yoodoo - digital brand
 * ​Smart Axiata​ - Cambodia
 * Smart Music
 * ​Ncell​ - Nepal
 * ​Timor Telecom​ - Timor-Leste; acquired in 2020
 * ​Vietnamobile​ - Vietnam; acquired in 2020
 * ​Airtel​ - India
 * Airtel Hutch - merger between Airtel Sri Lanka, ​Hutch​ and ​Dialog Axiata​
 * ​Robi​ - Bangladesh; integrated with ​Banglalink​
 * Beeline - Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, with a licensed franchise in Tajikistan
 * ​Digicel​ - Fiji, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu
 * Digicel Home - triple-play service
 * Digicel Sports
 * ​Vodafone​ -​ ​Egypt​, Angola and Taiwan, with licensed franchises in Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, New Zealand and Samoa; integrated with Etisalat​'s corporate operations, ​Movicel​ and ​FarEasTone​
 * ​Vodacom​ - South Africa; integrated with MTN's operations in South Africa, and Cell C
 * ​TPG Telecom​ - 50/50 joint venture with ​Hutchison Telecom​; Australia
 * TPG - integrated with ​iiNet​ and ​Internode​
 * Vodafone Australia
 * Vodafone Sure - Falkland Islands, Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey, St. Helena, Ascension Island, and the British Indian Ocean Territory, to be launched in Norfolk Island, Solomon Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, Niue, Palau, New Caledonia and Marshall Islands in March 2021; formed out of a merger between ​Airtel-Vodafone​ and ​Sure​
 * Etisalat - United Arab Emirates
 * MTN - Syria
 * Vodafone Ooredoo - Qatar and Oman; formed out of a merger between Oman Future Telecommunications, Vodafone Qatar, ​Ooredoo​ and Ooredoo Oman
 * Ooredoo - Myanmar, Maldives and ​Palestine
 * ​Djeezy​ - Algeria; integrated with ​Ooredoo Algeria​
 * ​Zain​ - Iraq, Jordan; integrated with Ooredoo's Asiacell (Iraq)
 * XL - Indonesia; formed out of a merger between ​XL Axiata​, ​Axis Telecom​, ​Indosat Ooredoo​ and 3 Indonesia's prepaid services
 * 3 Indonesia - integrated with XL Prioritas
 * Partnerships with StarHub (Singapore), LG Uplus (South Korea), Vinaphone (Vietnam) and du (United Arab Emirates)
 * ​Koryolink​ - 75% stake; North Korea
 * Orange Africa - 34% stake; Middle East and Africa

Latin America
O2 Latin America is a telecommunications provider in the Caribbean and Latin America, owned through a joint venture between Hoot (33%) and Crown Cellular (67%), 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.

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.

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
 * Technicolor USA
 * - 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)