Orange hails 'high calorie' customer diet

The company added just 1,000 new UK subscribers during the three months, a meagre 5% growth over last year and a paltry sum compared with Virgin Mobile, which announced Monday that it bagged over a quarter of a million new subscribers in the first quarter, a 54% leap over last year.

However, this takes Virgin's total to 2.6m, a long way off the 13.3m subscribers that Orange has in the UK. And, despite the slow growth, Orange saw UK recurring network revenues jump 11.3% to EU1.3bn in the first quarter. The company said it focused more on the quality of the customer mix by converting subscribers to more lucrative contract tariffs. It recorded 54,000 net growth on contract tariffs, and a reduction of 53,000 on pre-pay.

In addition, its critical indicator, annual revenue per user (ARPU), also jumped 7.3% in the UK to £263, from £245, last year, which it claims is the fastest ever growth. Meanwhile, ARPU in France, the group's other core market slipped 3.4% over last year to EU375. Recurring network revenues in France were up 4.1% to EU1.7bn.

"These are solid numbers, which clearly demonstrate Orange's focus on quality growth - not 'empty calorie' customers," CEO, Sol Trujillo, said in a statement.

"Good continuing trends in average customer usage and both voice and non-voice revenues are increasing the value of Orange's customer base and show the opportunity for significant growth ahead."

Overall, Orange added 557,000 subscribers to take its total to 44.9 million, up 7.1% on a year ago, with just 15,000 added in France, and the majority coming from other countries where the company has an interest.

Total group revenue in the period was EU4.26bn, up 9.4% over pro forma revenue of EU3.89bn in the first quarter of last year.

8 April 2003:

29 January 2003:

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