Orange Romania reported a 44,6% year on year increase in subscriber number and a 44,8% increase of revenues as of the end of the first half of 2005, as reported by France Telecom on July 28, 2005.
Subscriber numbers reached 5.72 million at 30 June, 2005, from 3.96 million a year earlier. Revenues for the first half of 2005 were EUR388 million, up from EUR268 million in the first half of 2004.
Orange Romania is the fourth largest mobile operation of France Telecom by number of subscribers, after Orange France (21.44m subscribers), Orange UK (14.46m subs.), and Centertel in Poland (8.63m subs.).
By revenues, Orange Romania comes sixth in the Orange group, after Orange France (EUR4.739 billion in the first half of 2005), Orange UK (EUR2.812 billion), Centertel (EUR741 million), Mobistar in Belgium (EUR705 million), and Orange Switzerland (EUR417 million)
France Telecom had 66.74 million controlled mobile subscribers worldwide at June 30, 2005, of which 56.12 million from Orange. 316,000 of these are mobile brodband subscribers. The number of fixed lines controlled by France Telecom reached 49,4 million worlwide, of which 33.7 million were ADSL lines, with 5.47 million of these in France alone. Internet subscribers of France Telecom reached 11.35 million worlwide at the end of June. Starting from next year, first in UK, mobile subscribers and broadband subscribers in the France Telecom group will get converged services under the same brand Orange, as part of a three-year transformation plan called NExT, announced on June 29, 2005.
In a more recent piece of news, Mobistar, the Belgian mobile operator 50.4% owned by France Telecom, announced on August 4 it would launch its own broadband services using Alcatel ADSL infrastructure and local exchange space and cooper from Belgacom, in a move which surprised analysts from Ovum, since France Telecom had no previous fixed-line business in Belgium, so NExT plan appears to be also a plan for expansion, not mere integration of existing Internet and mobile businesses in the group.
In Romania, Orange operates its own fiber optic infrastructure since January 2003 and offers an Wirefree Broadband service using Wireless IP technology in 3,5 GHz frequency band since July 2004.
