Orange (cellular)

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Orange SA

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1994
Seat Paris , France
management Olaf Swantee ( CEO )
Branch Mobile communications , telecommunications

Orange SA was an international telecommunications company . It emerged from the former British Orange plc , which France Télécom took over in 2000, incorporated into the newly founded group of companies under French law and later became the company's only brand. France Télécom has been operating as Orange since July 2013 .

history

Foundation and expansion

Orange plc was founded in 1994 as a subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa (as the main shareholder) and British Aerospace and entered the UK mobile communications market as the fourth mobile operator after BT Cellnet (now Telefónica Europe ), Vodafone and One2One (now EE Limited ). In 1996 the company went public. From the late 1990s, Orange plc began investing heavily abroad, particularly in Asia, making the company the second largest international cellular network. From 1999 to 2002 Orange sponsor was the Formula 1 teams Arrows .

Mannesmann

From 1999 Vodafone tried to take over the German conglomerate Mannesmann AG , which the Mannesmann board of directors at the time around Klaus Esser strictly rejected. As a defense measure , Mannesmann decided to take over Orange plc as a poison pill . This was supposed to make Mannesmann unattractive for Vodafone, as it was clear that Vodafone would have had to resell Orange with great losses after a Mannesmann takeover.

Mannesmann AG took over Orange plc for 19.8 billion pounds (approx. 60 billion German marks) at the end of December 1999.

Nevertheless, Mannesmann was taken over by Vodafone, and at the end of May 2000 Vodafone had to resell Orange plc for £ 26.9 billion (approx. DM 84 billion) for antitrust reasons. The buyer was France Télécom . Since the takeover, France Télécom merged Orange plc with its own mobile networks (especially in Africa) under the umbrella of Orange SA, which was newly founded under French law and has since used Orange as a brand for all of its mobile networks.

Brand expansion

France Télécom went over to using the “Orange” brand in the future for Internet and business services instead of their previous names Wanadoo and Equant . In June 2006 France Telecom replaced the previous brand “Equant” with “ Orange Business Services ”. The company "Equant" initially continued to exist in the commercial register in Germany, today Orange Business Germany GmbH , but customers have been served under the brand "Orange Business Services" since June 2006. Besides the name, nothing has changed. Orange Business has around 300 employees in Germany (as of August 13, 2012).

In Spain, the previous independent brands “Wanadoo” and “Amena” (acquired by France Télécom in 2005) were merged to “Orange” from autumn 2006. The related advertising campaign focused entirely on replacing the previous recognition colors of Wanadoo (red) and Amena (green) with orange.

International activities

In addition to the self-established network in France (founded by France Télécom under the name Itineris), Orange holds shares in subsidiaries in many parts of the world, namely

Orange has been sponsoring the African Football Championship since 2010 .

In October 2008 Orange acquired a 53 percent stake in Hits Telecom Uganda . There are 7.4 million mobile phone customers in Uganda, which corresponds to a market share of 25 percent. Orange plans to invest around $ 375 million in network expansion over the next three years.

France Telecom announced on April 11, 2009 that it intends to increase Orange's stake in Sonatel (Société Nationale des Télécommunications du Senegal) for 209 million euros from 42.3 to 52.2 percent. At the end of 2008, Sonatel had around 3.8 million customers in Senegal and around 3.4 million customers in Mali and Guinea-Bissau.

In February 2015, the sale of the joint venture between France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom, the British mobile operator EE Limited , to the BT Group was announced. While Deutsche Telekom secured a 12% stake in BT Group, France Telecom was paid out.

(Former) name use outside of the French parent company

In Israel , the Orange brand is licensed from Partner Communications Company Ltd. utilized. Orange Israel is not part of the France Télécom Orange group. In addition, the Orange brand was also in Australia and Hong Kong of Hutchison Whampoa still in use until recently. In these countries, however, the well-known mobile communications brand "3" was used because most customers there already use UMTS.

The former 35% stake in Austria in Orange Austria no longer exists (Mid Europa Partners held 65%; in "3" (Hutchison-Whampoa); the "Orange" brand has disappeared from Austria)

The stake in Denmark (formerly Mobilix) was sold to Telia in 2004 for 600 million euros , the stake in the Netherlands (formerly Dutchtone, later Orange NL) was sold to T-Mobile in 2007 for 1.3 billion euros .

The former 100% participation in Switzerland (including the cooperation in Liechtenstein ) no longer exists because France Télécom had specified that it would only be present in those markets in which it would be No. 1 or 2. As a result, an attempt was made to take over Sunrise Communications , which the antitrust authorities had not approved. In November 2009 Orange (Switzerland) announced its intention to merge with the Swiss TDC subsidiary Sunrise Communications, whereby Orange would hold a majority of 75% in the new company. The market share would then double to around 37%. On April 22, 2010, the Competition Commission (WEKO) prohibited the merger. The reason given was the dominant position in the mobile communications market of the merged company together with Swisscom . In addition, the network operator most active in the market (sunrise) would have left the market. Instead, it was announced on December 24, 2011 that Orange Switzerland would be sold to the British private equity firm Apax Partners for 1.6 billion euros . After this failed merger attempt, Orange Communications was sold on February 29, 2012 by the French parent company and now 100% continued by the company "Matterhorn Mobile SA", which in turn is subordinate to Apax Partners - before the takeover by Xavier Niel in 2014. In April 2015 "Orange Communications SA" was renamed to Salt Mobile and can thus save around CHF 20 million annually on brand license costs for using the name "Orange".

  • (Historical) logos of the acquired and subsidiary companies

  • Denmark (historical)

  • France (historical)

  • Netherlands (historical)

  • Austria (historical)

  • Poland (historical)

  • Portugal

  • Slovakia (historical)

  • Spain (historical)

swell

  1. ↑ heise.de: France Télécom will be called Orange from July
  2. ↑ Der Spiegel : Mannesmann - Dramatic price slide because of the Orange Deal , October 21, 1999.
  3. ↑ Der Spiegel : Mannesmann - Brussels approves Orange takeover , December 21, 1999.
  4. ^ Heise Online: France Telecom's entry into Great Britain perfect , May 30, 2000.
  5. ↑ BusinessWeek.com: Key developments for Orange Uganda Limited - Firms May List On USE , May 25, 2009.
  6. ↑ GoMoNews.com: Bena Roberts: Orange to launch Mobile Services in Uganda ( Memento of the original from January 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , October 20, 2008. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gomonews.com
  7. ↑ comm.ae: Orange Uganda guns for Q1 launch , March 1, 2009.
  8. ↑ Handelsblatt .com: France Telecom wants majority in Sonatel , April 8, 2009.
  9. ↑ British mobile operator EE: Telekom sells EE shares to BT Group. Retrieved March 14, 2018 .
  10. ↑ derStandard.at: One becomes "Orange" on September 22nd, September 5th, 2008.
  11. ↑ Expensive guest performance: Orange mobile phone brand to disappear from Austria , heise-online, February 6, 2012.
  12. ↑ inside-handy.de: TeliaSonera buys Orange Denmark for 600 million euros ( Memento from June 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), July 7, 2004.
  13. ↑ Focus.de: Telekom: Orange Netherlands becomes T-Mobile , September 28, 2007.
  14. ↑ NZZ Online: Orange Switzerland wants to take over Sunrise , November 25, 2009.
  15. ↑ admin.ch: WEKO prohibits the merger of Orange and Sunrise , press release of April 22, 2010.
  16. ↑ Handelsblatt .com: Orange Switzerland goes to British investor , December 24, 2011.
  17. ↑ Matterhorn Mobile SA, owner of Orange CH ( Memento from June 28, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  18. ↑ ComCom clears the way for Xavier Niel to take over the mobile network operator Orange . OFCOM media information from February 12, 2015.

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