Orange: revenue down but many new subscribers in the third quarter

Overall, the operator reported strong financial results for the third quarter of the year. But the record reveals a small dark task on the box France, despite strong commercial recruitment.

After being back in the green in the second quarter following the start of the year in the red, the Orange group confirmed its growth worldwide in the third quarter, with a turnover of 10.58 billion euros, up 0.8% year-on-year and 2.6% over the previous three months. The company, driven by strong growth in business in Africa and the Middle East (+ 7.6%), had more trouble in France.

Orange does better on mobile in the third quarter than the first two quarters together

For Orange France, revenue for the third quarter of 2019 was 4.55 billion euros, down 0.4% year-on-year and 0.5% from the previous quarter. The operator tells us all the same, for information, that removing the effect of digital reading offers (ePresse, audiobook, etc.), the turnover would increase by 0.2%.


Before seeing the fix, let's linger for a moment on the results of the mobile market. In the third quarter, Orange registered 90,000 additional subscriptions, rewarding the commercial efforts and the success of the multi-line Open offer. The operator did much better than the first (19,000) and the second quarter of 2019 (61,000), but also better than the third quarter of 2018 (82,000).

These good results, however, do not prevent us from noting a decline in sales of the division, measured at 585 million euros and down 3.9% year-on-year, as customers turn more to mobile convergence. fixed.

A new subscriber record on fiber optics

On the fixed-line, Orange has recruited 65,000 new broadband subscribers, which is once again better than the first (49,000) and second quarter (41,000).

But it is mainly on optical fiber that the operator has achieved performance and confirms an excellent year, with 178,000 additional net sales in the third quarter, 18,000 more than the second (160,000) and 10,000 of more than the first (178,000). It is simply a record for the firm, which had 3.1 million fiber customers in France on September 30, 2019. There, too, the company is rewarded for the efforts deployed in the AMII zone and the availability of fiber offerings on public initiative networks.


But like the mobile, the fixed income is not positive, and mark a sharp decline of 6% over one year, to 1.015 billion euros, again in favor of mobile-fixed convergence which, it rose 3.2% to 1.10 billion euros.

Orange Bank is almost groping

After recruiting 39,000 new customers in the first quarter and 33,000 in the second, Orange Bank confirmed its slowdown with only 24,000 new customers. The online bank of the incumbent operator has 344,000 customers in France. The negative EBITDA of Orange Bank is growing and now reaches 115 million euros (against 78 million euros).