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Press Information
Vienna - 12 December 2012

• EU approves takoever of Orange by Hutchison 3G Austria
• Consumers benefit from improved scale and stronger challenger to incumbents
• Approval paves the way for early roll-out of LTE in Austria

Hutchison 3G Austria ("3 Austria"), a subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa Limited, today welcomed the decision of the European Commission to clear its acquisition of 100% of Orange Austria from its present owners Mid Europa Partners and France Telecom.

3 CEO Jan Trionow commented "After over 10 months of intensive scrutiny of all aspects of the proposed merger by the EU and Austrian authorities, we have now finally received the green light from the Commission to proceed with this acquisition. The combination of the two businesses will result in a stronger challenger in the Austrian market, able to take the fight to the two incumbent MNOs, for the benefit of Austrian consumers. With the resulting larger scale and efficiencies, the merged entity will now have the means to execute an early nationwide roll-out of LTE in Austria, ensuring that Austria remains at the forefront of competition and innovation in Europe."

As part of the EU approval process, 3 Austria committed to offer network access to new MVNOs in the Austrian market on very competitive terms, to contribute 2.6 GHz spectrum to complement the 800 MHz spectrum to be reserved by the Austrian telecommunications regulator for a new entrant MNO in the auction to take place next year and to offer national roaming, co-location and sites to the new MNO.

Trionow said: "3 Austria has yet again demonstrated that it is the most consumer-friendly mobile network operator (MNO) in Austria. In addition to single-handedly creating the conditions for the entry of new MVNOs in Austria, as well as the possible entry of a new MNO entrant, we are committing to roll out our LTE network within 2 years. Our customers, who already enjoy the benefits of the best mobile broadband network in Austria, will be able to use their smart phones with the new LTE high-speed, high-quality technology across the entire country."

As part of the transaction, 3 Austria will sell Yesss! Telekommunikation GmbH ("Yesss!") to A1 immediately after the acquisition of Orange Austria. This sale was unconditionally approved by the Austrian Cartel Court on 27 November. The Austrian Competition Authority and the Federal Cartel Prosecutor have a right to appeal the Cartel Court's decision until 27 December.

Trionow added: "the Yesss! sale is an integral part of the proposed merger. An appeal of the Yesss! sale would therefore undermine the entire transaction and stand in the way of the benefits that will quickly flow from it in terms of scale, innovation and new network roll-out, competition by new MVNOs and the new market entry that are part of the package approved by the Commission. The Cartel Court came to the unequivocal conclusion that the Yesss! part of the transaction has no negative impact on competition. The only ones to gain from an appeal and the consequent further delay or failure of the entire transaction will be the incumbent operators we want compete with; the people who will suffer most will be the Austrian consumers."

About 3:
Hutchison 3G Austria GmbH is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa Limited in Hong Kong. It started business in May 2003 under the 3 brand as the only purely UMTS network operator in Austria. With 94% UMTS coverage the 3MegaNetwork is Austria's largest UMTS network and covers 99% of the Austrian population with basic services. 3 has always aimed to offer its customers the latest mobile telecom technology - innovative, simple and offering outstanding value for money. Apart from mobile voice telephony in high-definition quality and mobile broadband internet access, 3 offers numerous multimedia services including 3MobileTV - all of this over the best network in Austria. The 3MegaNet won for the second year running the highly-respected network test conducted by the specialist magazine "connect" which found it to be the best network with the highest number of points ever awarded in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. At present (July 2012), around 1.5 million customers use the 3MegeaNet for speech and data. In Europe as a whole, the 3group has some 22.23 million customers.

3 Contact:
Maritheres Paul
Spokesperson
Hutchison 3G Austria GmbH
Tel.: +43 (0) 50 660 33700
3Mobile: +43 (0) 660 3773773
E-Mail: maritheres.paul@drei.com
Web: www.drei.at/Presse