Orange slips a little in the 3rd quarter, but takes care of its fixed-mobile convergence

In the third quarter, Orange saw its turnover decline in France, despite a gain in new subscribers, on fixed and mobile, and careful convergence.

Orange experienced a rather mixed third quarter of 2022. If, from a global point of view, all is well, with a global turnover up 1% over one year to 10.8 billion euros, it was a little more tense in France. The incumbent operator saw its turnover fall by 1% (4.5 billion euros), affected in particular by its wholesale sales and purchase activities.

New mobile subscribers and rising average revenue per subscriber

Once again in the spotlight by ARCEP’s latest mobile service quality survey, Orange may have seen its revenue slow in France in recent months, but its retail services business continues to grow , especially on smartphones.

On mobile offers, mainly carried by the Orange brand, the company recorded 212,000 net sales in the third quarter, against 121,000 over the same period the previous year. These net sales, almost doubled between 2021 and 2022, correspond to the new subscribers that the operator welcomed this quarter, after deducting departures and terminations. We can therefore speak of success for the company at this level.

Orange explains that these subscriptions have made it possible to increase the mobile ARPU (what each customer reports to the operator) by 0.4% over one year. It stands at 17.3 euros per subscriber on average. The churn rate (or churn) is also a slight improvement over this quarter, falling below the 11% mark (10.9% to be exact).

The French continue to adopt fiber

On fixed broadband, Orange announces that it has welcomed 47,000 new subscribers, in net sales, with 293,000 subscriptions to a fiber offer (compared to 343,000 in the third quarter of 2021). Note that more than half of Orange’s FttH sales are made up of new customers in the last quarter.

Unsurprisingly, the large recruitment on FttH offers is mitigated by the loss of 246,000 subscribers (in particular ADSL) which continues at Orange as at the other operators. Some of them have migrated to the competition or to very high speed offers from Orange, without it being possible to have more details on the figures.

The big reason for satisfaction at Orange for France this quarter undoubtedly results from the convergent ARPO, that is to say the average income generated by subscribers who combine a fixed offer with a mobile offer. In the third quarter of 2022, this convergent ARPO increased by 2.2%, to reach 71.4 euros.