Vodafone Germany
Vodafone GmbH is a German subsidiary of Vodafone Group plc, a company based in the UK. It provides mobile phone, DSL, LTE, cable internet, landlines, cable TV and IPTV services to customers in Germany. As of the fourth quarter of 2019, Vodafone GmbH has 51 million mobile customers in Germany, making it the largest provider of mobile phone services in Germany. The company's headquarters are in the Düsseldorf suburb of Heerdt, with regional offices throughout Germany. Vodafone Germany's main competitors are Telekom Deutschland and Telefónica Germany.
The company in its present form resulted from Vodafone's takeover of the German engineering group Mannesmann GmbH in 2000. On 8 December 1989, the West German Federal Ministry for Posts and Telecommunications awarded the second digital GSM-900 network in Germany to Mannesmann, as the first private company in Germany to break the monopoly of the telecommunications services operated by Deutsche Bundespost. This licence was subsequently expanded to cover the former East Germany after German reunification in 1991. Mannesmann subsequently began operations of its mobile network on 30 June 1992. It was rebranded Vodafone D2 in 2002.
Vodafone Germany's network serves both prepaid and postpaid customers on GSM and UMTS. In December 2010, Vodafone started providing LTE services, and launched HD Voice in October 2016.
In February 2011, Vodafone Germany started providing IPTV via DSL and VDSL connections. In April 2011, Vodafone Germany started to distribute Disney content via IPTV.
At the end of 2010, Vodafone had 36.676 million mobile phone or mobile internet customers and 3.945 million customers with a DSL / VDSL connection.
Following T-Mobile, Vodafone Germany started selling the Apple iPhone 4S in September 2011.
As of 2014, the company owns around 75% of Kabel Deutschland and in 2019 Unitymedia was merged with Vodafone.
The company sponsored the AMG-Mercedes team in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Blancpain Sprint Series and Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters.
