3 (company)
global telecommunications brand
Hutchison 3G Enterprises S.A.R.L., commonly known as Hutchison 3G (acronym H3G) and trading as 3 (Three), is the owner of a brand name that operates several mobile phone networks and broadband Internet providers in Hong Kong, Austria, Denmark, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The brand was officially founded on 3 March 2003 in Hong Kong. As of 2022, registered Three customers worldwide numbered over 110 million.
Most 3-branded network companies (except the United Kingdom, which its owned by Vodafone) are wholly-owned subsidiaries of CK Hutchison Holdings (formerly Hutchison Whampoa) but the ownership structure varies. CK Hutchison Holdings owns direct majority interests of six networks through 3 Group Europe, including Austria, Denmark, Italy, Ireland and Sweden. Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holdings operates the networks in Hong Kong, while Hutchison Telecommunications International operates the network in Indonesia. All 3-branded networks provide 4G and 3G services; some also run 2G networks and 5G services. CK Hutchison Holdings no longer holds a 3G licence in Israel, which was formerly operated under the brand Orange, or in Norway, where an unused licence was previously held by 3 Scandinavia.
Etymologies and logo
During the launch of the brand in 2002, when Hutchison Whampoa sold its 2G business to Orange, the brand name 3 (Three) represented their new 3G services. In 2003, CK Hutchison Holdings stated that the name refers to their three global telecommunication services: 3G, GSM Dualband and CDMA. The logo, which is a visual representation of the number "3", was originally three-dimensional and orange in colour.
The public source identifies “3 (company)” as global telecommunications brand. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around company, global and telecommunications.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q407009. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2003, 2022 and 2002.
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This entry incorporates text from “3 (company)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.