Vodafone Group Plc (LSE: VOD, NASDAQ: VOD) is a British multinational telecommunications company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's second-largest mobile telecommunications company measured by both subscribers and 2011 revenues (in each case behind China Mobile), and had 439 million subscribers as of December 2011.

Vodafone owns and operates networks in over 30 countries and has partner networks in over 40 additional countries. Its Vodafone Global Enterprise division provides telecommunications and IT services to multinational corporate clients in over 65 countries. Vodafone also owns 45% of Verizon Wireless, the largest mobile telecommunications company in the United States measured by subscribers.

Vodafone has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It had a market capitalisation of approximately £89.4 billion (US$ 140.32 billion) as of 23 December 2011, the second-largest of any company listed on the London Stock Exchange. It has a secondary listing on NASDAQ.

Qatar (ⁱ/ˈkɑːtɑr/ or ⁱ/kəˈtɑr/;Arabic: قطر‎ [ˈqɑtˤɑr]; local vernacular pronunciation: [ɡɪtˤɑr]), also known as the country or State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in Western Asia, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its territory surrounded by the Persian Gulf. A strait of the Persian Gulf separates Qatar from the nearby island state of Bahrain.

Qatar has been ruled as an absolute monarchy by Al Thani family since the mid-19th century. Formerly a British protectorate noted mainly for pearling, it became independent in 1971, and has become one of the region's wealthiest states due to its enormous oil and natural gas revenues. In 1995, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani became Emir when he seized power from his father, Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani, in a peaceful coup d'état. The most important positions in Qatar are held by the members of the Al Thani family, or close confidants of the al-Thani family. Beginning in 1992, Qatar has built intimate military ties with the United States, and is now the location of U.S. Central Command’s Forward Headquarters and the Combined Air Operations Center.