Orange sees strong TV and FTTH growth in France

Orange reported 5.463 million IPTV and satellite customers in France at the end of the third quarter, up 141,000 on the previous quarter and up by 581,000 on the same period for the prior year. 

Overall broadband customers in the French market numbered 10.046 million, including 273,000 fibre-to-the-home customers. Third quarter fixed broadband revenues in France were flat at €1.005 billion.

Elsewhere, Orange had mixed news on the TV front. In Poland, Orange had 702,000 IPTV and satellite customers at the end of September, up by only 3,000 on the previous quarter and 7,000 on September 2012.

The company’s base of IPTV customers in Spain, where Orange relaunched its service at the end of September, numbered 62,000, a quarter-on-quarter decline of 3,000 and a year-on-year decline of 7,000.

Overall, Orange posted 3Q revenues of €10.162 billion, down 4% year-on-year.

“The number of broadband conversion customers has grown by more than 70% year-on-year in France, Spain and Poland, plus 52% in France, plus 127% in Spain and multiplied by 30 in Poland. We saw an increase in demand for very high-speed both in mobile and fixed markets,” said Orange chief financial officer Gilles Pellissier on a conference call following the results. “In France, the pick-up of fibre is confirmed with 273,000 FTTH customers at the end of September. This is materialised by now a base of 6,000 connections per week in September, and we expect to reach nearly 8,000 connections per week at year end, being probably on the top list amongst European operators the numbers of new connections per week.”