Vivo (telecommunications) region Vivo owns the following brands: Vivo (telecommunications) Vivo (, Portuguese for "alive"), is a brand of Telefônica Brasil, the largest telecommunications company in Brazil. It is headquartered both in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The company was originally formed as part of Telebrás, the state-owned telecom monopoly at the time. In 1998, Telebrás was demerged and privatized. Telefónica bought Telesp, the São Paulo division, and rebranded it to Telefónica. On 15 April 2012, all Telefonica services were rebranded again to Vivo, using the same strategy of unifying all its services in a unique brand, like Movistar (Hispanic America
Zündwaren monopoly Zündwaren monopoly The German Zündwaren monopoly (translated Monopoly for Safety Matches) began in 1930 when Germany's Reichstag passed a bill named "Zündwarenmonopolgesetz" ("Safety Matches Monopoly Law"), which allowed the "Deutsche Zündwaren-Monopolgesellschaft" (translated "German Society for the Safety Matches Monopoly") exclusive rights to distribute safety matches within the borders of the German Empire. The only brands the "Deutsche Zündwaren-Monopolgesellschaft" could distribute were "Welthölzer" ("World Matches") and "Haushaltsware" ("Household article"). Local German manufacturers obtained licenses to produce preassigned volumes to sell domestically and were not allowed to export these matches or to establish new firms. The official monopoly had been acquired by