ONE was a long-expected divorce, the other a much-predicted wedding. On September 2nd America’s Verizon Communications bought Britain’s Vodafone out of Verizon Wireless, the biggest mobile operator in the United States. It will pay a staggering $130 billion in cash, shares and bonds for Vodafone’s 45% stake. The next day Microsoft bought Nokia’s mobile-phone business for €3.8 billion ($5 billion). The American software company will also pay the Finnish firm €1.7 billion to license its patents, and lend it €1.5 billion.
Together the transactions make the outlines of the mobile-telecoms industry clearer at three levels. The main makers of mobile-network equipment, the Chinese excepted, have now given up making handsets. The handset-makers have coalesced around three “ecosystems”: Google’s Android, Apple’s iOS and, in distant third place, Microsoft’s Windows. And the operators of mobile networks are preparing for a fresh wave of consolidation.
