Orange, which has just published its results for the first quarter of 2024, reports a new loss of subscribers on mobile but also on landlines. And this despite the growth of its fiber subscriber base.
Early this Wednesday, April 24, 2024, Orange announced its financial results, and they are full of interesting details which often say a lot about what is happening in the world of telecoms. Financially, Orange is doing well: 9.85 billion euros in turnover in the first quarter (+2.1%) and revenues also increasing (+0.8%) in France, with 4.34 billion euros. euros over the first three months of the year. Yes, but these good results barely mask the loss of subscribers of the historic operator, on almost all counts.
A very slight trompe-l’oeil increase on mobile for Orange in the first quarter
So let’s start with mobile. With 20.845 million subscribers at the end of the first quarter, Orange saw its mobile plan subscriber base increase by 9,000 over the last three months in France. This data is much lower, moreover, than the previous quarters. Over one year, the operator still earns 220,000.
On the other hand, in net sales and notably adding data from prepaid, the figures are not the same. Orange is losing 60,000 subscribers here (while it was up over the previous two quarters) compared to the end of 2023. Over one year, on the other hand, we note a slight increase (+22,000 net sales) .
Small alert for the operator on the churn, the user loss rate. In the first quarter, Orange measured it at 12.7%, the highest in the last five quarters. Proof that users are always more volatile, and that rising prices can drive them away.
Orange is still losing landline subscribers
As for the landline, let’s start with the good news. The pure number of subscribers to Orange’s Livebox offers increased in the first quarter (+247,000) and exploded over one year (+1.02 million). The actor is slowly approaching 10 million technology subscribers. But to judge the good health of an operator on its fixed network, it is rather the net sales that we must look at. Because many customers have either left the operator or switched from an ADSL offer to a fiber optic offer.
Summary of the races: Orange has a total of 12.27 million subscribers by adding those from fiber (8.48 million), xDSL (3.37 million) and users of 4G and 5G boxes (76,000). The company thus lost 43,000 subscribers, in net sales, in the first quarter. Over one year, the operator lost 138,000 in total.
The good news, even if it has consequences on the number of subscribers, is that Orange has seen its ARPU increase quite significantly. Basically, this is what a subscriber brings in, on average. If mobile ARPU stabilizes around 18.7 euros, it is constantly increasing on landlines, at 37.8 euros (+5.3% over one year), compared to 35.9 euros a year ago.
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