Commenting on the results for the first quarter of 2013, Stéphane Richard, Chairman and CEO of France TelecomOrange, said: “In a French mobile market that has remained under pressure, we have again demonstrated our ability to react quickly with forceful commercial offers. In the mobile segment, this is due to the success of the Open and Sosh offers while in fixed!line services, over 300,000 customers subscribed to Livebox Play offers in just two months and subscriber numbers for fibre exceeded 200,000. Operations in Spain, Africa and the Middle East have once again made a positive contribution to the Group's revenues. The acceleration in the reduction of operational expenses, including indirect costs, made it possible to limit margin erosion to less than one point. Investments, up more than 6% over the year, were concentrated on the faster roll!out of fibre and 4G in France. In addition, I have renewed and strengthened the management team, to enable greater efficiency, particularly in the field of innovation Altogether, I am very confident in the ability of the men and women of the Group to achieve our goals for 2013 and beyond.”
The France TelecomOrange group revenues were 10.280 billion euros for the first quarter of 2013, a decrease of 4.1% on a comparable basis. Excluding the impact of regulatory measures (250 million euros), the Group’s revenues declined 1.8% compared to the previous year.
The Group had 229.8 million customers (excluding MVNOs) at 31 March 2013, a yearonyear increase of 2.6% with 5.9 million net additions. This change included the effects of the Orange Austria disposal (781,000 mobile customers at 31 December 2012) and the acquisition of Simyo in Spain (398,000 mobile customers at 31 March 2013).
There were 171.8 million mobile services customers (excluding MVNOs) at 31 March 2013, a yearonyear increase of 4.0%:
- Africa and the Middle East had 82.0 million customers at 31 March 2013, an increase of 8.2% (+6.2 million net additions). Orange Money, now marketed in thirteen African and Middle Eastern countries, had 6.6 million customers at 31 March 2013;
- in France, the mobile customer base grew 1.3% (+353,000 net additions) to 26.8 million customers at 31 March 2013, year on year. Contracts rose 3.8% to 19.8 million customers, nearly threequarters of the total customer base, while prepaid offers fell 5.0% to 7.0 million customers;
- other regions (63.0 million customers at 31 March 2013) recorded growth of 0.7% year on year (+460,000 net additions), excluding the impact of the Orange Austria disposal and the acquisition of Simyo in Spain, including Poland (+274,000), Moldavia (+215,000), the Dominican Republic (+171,000), Spain (+149,000 excluding Simyo) and Romania (+127,000), while the United Kingdom lost 374,000 customers.
There were 15.0 million fixed broadband customers at 31 March 2013, a yearonyear increase of 3.0% or 437,000 net additions, including 263,000 in France, 143,000 in Spain, 29,000 in Egypt and 28,000 in Slovakia. Fixed broadband subscribers included 265,000 optical fibre customers at 31 March 2013, mainly in France (206,000 subscribers), where growth accelerated with 30,000 additional subscribers in the first quarter of 2013 and 99,000 year on year.
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