TeliaSonera, the leading telecommunications group in the Nordic-Baltic region, announced that an agreement with France Telecom to acquire its Danish subsidiary, Orange A/S, with 605,000 mobile customers in Denmark.

With the acquisition, TeliaSonera is executing its strategy to increase its mobile customer base in the country. TeliaSonera currently operates mobile and fixed line communications as well as cable TV business in Denmark.

"By combining Telia Mobile Denmark and Orange Denmark, we are creating a true and powerful contender to the two dominating players in the Danish market. Combined we will have critical mass and operational scale, sufficient to become the first choice provider of mobile services in Denmark. This combination will benefit the Danish mobile customers," comments Anders Igel, President and CEO of TeliaSonera and continues, "In particular, the increased size will improve our ability to meet the demands of the business customer segments, but it will also enable us to continue improving our successful consumer service offer."

The plan is to begin integrating the mobile operations of TeliaSonera in Denmark and Orange A/S as soon as the necessary approvals for the transaction are obtained. Until then, integration planning will be lead by a steering group. Integration planning will include decisions on branding, customer migration, new service portfolio, premises, personnel, handling of the overlapping GSM networks and UMTS licenses.

More information: TeliaSonera