Orange sees 41.6% higher revenues in nine months

Mobile telephony operator Orange Romania, 96.8% held by France Telecom, posted third quarter revenues of 229 million euros, with the number of customers climbing to 6.22 million by September, 30, 2005.

Orange Romania officials would not comment on the results, which were made public in the quarterly report of France Telecom. No other information about the profitability of the mobile telephony operator was made public.

Orange posted 617 million-euro revenues for the first nine months, an increase of 41.6% on the corresponding period of last year. The results are almost equal to its full-year revenues in 2004, 624 million euros. The sustained growth is primarily due to the rising number of customers, which was 42.3% higher compared with the same time last year, the company officials say.

The operator has managed to maintain a constant growth pace this year – more than 40% both for its revenues and for the number of customers. It had 5.290 million customers at the end of March 2005, and had managed to add another 430,000 new customers by the end of the second quarter of the year. Net additions in the third quarter came close to half a million. The target set for 2005, 6 million users, was exceeded in the second half of August.

France Telecom through its mobile telephony division Orange early this year acquired 23.36% in Orange Romania from a consortium led by AIG New Europe Fund for 408.5 million euros in cash. The transaction allowed appraising the market value of the operator at approximately 1.776bn euros or 351.5 euros per subscriber.

Orange Romania”s target for the 2005 turnover is about 770 million euros (one billion dollars i.e.), a mark it will most likely overshoot, seeing as the fourth quarter is traditionally the most profitable for the mobile telephony operators.

The operating income should stand at 415 million euros (540 million dollars).

The main competitor, Connex, stopped revealing its financial results after takeover by UK”s Vodafone Group. Connex logged 5.2 million customers in mid-year. dan.dragomir@zf.ro