Telefónica, S.A. () is a Spanish multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Madrid, Spain. It is one of the largest telephone operators and mobile network providers in the world. It provides fixed and mobile telephony, broadband, and subscription television, operating in Europe and the Americas. As well as the Telefónica brand, it also trades as Movistar, O2, and Vivo. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index. History The company was created in Madrid in 1924 as Compañía Telefónica Nacional de España (CTNE) with ITT as one of its major shareholders. In 1945, the state acquired by law a share of 79.6% of the company. This stake was diluted by a capital increase in 1967. Until the liberalisation of the telecom market in 1997, Telefónica was the only telephone operator in Spain. It still holds a dominant position (over 75% in 2000). Nowadays, Telefónica is present in more than 20 countries around Europe and America. Ownership Telefónica is a 100% listed company with more than 1.5 million direct shareholders. Its share capital currently comprises 4.563.996.485 ordinary shares traded on the Spanish Stock Market (Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao and Valencia) and on those in London, New York, Lima, and Buenos Aires. The five major stockholders include: BlackRock: 6.702% Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA): 6.072% Société Générale: 5.774% CaixaBank: 5.251% Norges Bank: 1.355% Current operations Europe Austria In May 2022, Telefonica announced the acquisition of the European cloud-based services specialist and cloud Microsoft Dynamics partner BE-terna. The deal worth €350 million includes 1,000 staff, AI, extended service capabilities across Europe and a cybersecurity services division.The deal aimed to see Telefonica to increase its geographic scale and aid to its digital capabilities. Spain Telefónica is the second largest corporation in Spain, behind the Santander Group. It operates under the movistar and O2 brands with the first being the largest broadband and phone (both mobile and landlines) provider in Spain. Telefónica's FTTH network in Spain is the most extensive fibre-to-home network in Europe, as of April 2016, and the shut down plan for the legacy copper network is already in progress. Germany Telefónica was the parent of Telefónica Deutschland, which held two alternative IP carriers. The two ISPs, mediaWays and HighwayOne merged in January 2003 after having been purchased by Telefónica in 2001 and February 2002 respectively. On 26 January 2006 Telefónica completed its £17.7 billion (€25.7 billion) acquisition of the