Difficult quarter for Orange

Orange has experienced a revenue dip in Q3.

The French operator has been impacted by lower returns from co-financing deals to deploy networks as it balances between the need to upgrade its operations while remaining competitive in France and Spain.

Overall, Orange’s Q3 EBITDA dropped by 0.7% year-over-year to €3.55 billion. Softening the blow however are deals that Orange has signed with rivals including Bouygues Telecom and Free which ensures that it receives payments from operators that use its network. These deals did experience lower than usual returns, which resulted in a 4.1% drop in French sales.

Despite all of this financial difficulty, Orange still managed to add subscribers. In France, it added 121,000 mobile customers and 80,000 broadband customers. 

In Spain, the operator took a €3.7 billion write down to reflect the market’s decreasing value. 

Stéphane Richard, chairman and CEO of the Orange group, said: “Orange’s sustained commercial performance in the third quarter, marked by solid momentum in retail services across all the countries where we are present, allows us to confirm all of our financial commitments. In an economy still showing the effects of the health crisis, including the acceleration of the digital transformation, our customers’ appetite for very high-speed access is evidenced in their take up of fiber and 5G, and of our convergent offers.”