E-Plus is a mobile telecommunications operator in Germany. With more than 25 million subscribers, E-Plus is the third largest mobile operator in Germany, after Telekom (38 million subscribers) and Vodafone (32 million subscribers). E-Plus has been owned by Dutch telecommunications operator KPN since 2002. In July 2013, Telefónica Germany announced a planned takeover. The deal was approved by KPN shareholders in October 2013. As of December 2013, the merger is not completed because of concerns by the European Commission on reduced competition in the German mobile market. On July, the European Commission granted Telefónica’s takeover of E-plus its conditional approval with final approval expected by the end of August 2014.[