Australian regulator voices concerns over Vodafone/Hutchison 3 merger in the country

Remember that Vodafone and Hutchison announcement that they will merge their Australian operations to form a new company? Well, it seems Australia’s anti-trust regulator doesn’t like the idea. As a matter of fact, they said that the move could hurt competition in the local mobile market.

In the so called “Statement of Issues” document, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said that “the proposed merger raises competition concerns in the short to medium term within the mobile telephony and MBB [mobile broadband] segments of the national market.” Moreover, the regulator said that the prospect of a new entrant to the market was “practically non-existent.” As a result, they say that end users could see an increased pricing, as the two carriers were “each other’s closest competitors” in the metropolitan and prepaid markets.

Another concern was related to competition issues, as Voda and 3 have insights into the network investment plans of rivals Telstra and Optus due to the various network-sharing joint-ventures between the operators. Personally, I don’t buy this argument as I’m sure all operators know their competitors well.

Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) and Hutchison now have a chance to resolve areas of concern, and if everything goes as planned — and we’ll know the regulator’s decision on May 6th — a new operator called VHA (Vodafone Hutchison Australia) will emerge with with 6 million customers and combined total revenues of approximately AU$4 billion ($2.7 billion).

[Via: GSMA newsletter]