Orange the mobile phone market's most rapidly expanding company yesterday said it had signed a record 1
Orange, the mobile phone market's most rapidly expanding company, yesterday said it had signed a record 1.1 million net new customers during the third quarter, the latest indication that growth in the sector remains robust . The figures for the three months to the end of September were boosted by sales of lower-margin pre-paid mobile phones and follow the addition of 1.2 million customers in the second quarter, also a record for that period. Orange, owned by France Telecom, has more than doubled its customer base in the past year to 8.3 million and is chasing BT Cellnet for the number two slot after Vodafone.''It's a good number, in line with our expectations, and shows growth is still strong in the UK market,'' said Andrew Beale, an analyst at Deutsche Bank. France Telecom's shares rose 1.6 euros to 123 euros.Orange was the first of the four UK wireless network operators to report subscriber figures for the third quarter, and the company is expected to maintain its lead in signing up new customers. BT's Cellnet, Vodafone, and Deutsche Telekom's UK mobile phone unit One2One, will release their subscriber numbers tomorrow.Mr Beale expected total UK subscribers to have grown by 3.6 million in the quarter with One2One adding 1 million net new customers, Vodafone 820,000, and Cellnet 675,000. That would bring the number ofsubscriptions in the UK to 34.2 million, equivalent to about 60 per cent of the total population.Just 18.8 per cent of Orange's new customers for the third quarter were signed up on contract plans. It now has 2.96 million contract customers, against 5.3 million pre-paid. Contract subscribers tend to spend more on calls on average and remain loyal to a network operator.''Orange is being aggressive [before an expected IPO] and the figures show the big growth area in the market is pre-paid,'' said Jan-Willem Brand, an analyst at ABN Amro.
''The big question is how long will the growth last, and will the pre-paid customers remain on Orange's network?'', he added.. Photo-Me International, the photo-booth operator, yesterday unveiled plans to allow people to buy pre-paid phone charge cards, send e-mails and create business cards in upgraded internet-connected booths. Photo-Me International, the photo-booth operator, yesterday unveiled plans to allow people to buy pre-paid phone charge cards, send e-mails and create business cards in upgraded internet-connected booths. The package of services will be available in France first. It is due to be rolled out in the UK and other countries next year, and will involve a new machine - called print call - being installed in existing booths. Serge Crasnianski, chief executive of Photo-Me, said: "We are currently talking to some large telecoms phone companies in the UK."Under the deal Photo-Me will upgrade its booths in France with the aim of enabling a total of 1,000 booths. The process will begin in February.In the French booths, Photo-Me will sell the charge cards for both fixed-line and mobile phones for the French telecoms company Intercall, in return for a 15 per cent slice of revenue, plus a "substantial" monthly fee.
Mr Crasnianski said: "The deal represents a substantial saving for customers as they will buy the cards by the hour rather than by the minute, which will reduce the price by as much as 40 per cent."Photo-Me's shares fell 15.5p to 165.5p yesterday.. Royal London, the mutual life assurance company, yesterday clinched victory in the hard-fought bid battle for Scottish Life, with an agreement to pay £1.1bn for the Edinburgh-based mutual insurer. Royal London, the mutual life assurance company, yesterday clinched victory in the hard-fought bid battle for Scottish Life, with an agreement to pay £1.1bn for the Edinburgh-based mutual insurer. The deal will trigger windfalls for Scottish Life's 220,000 members and some other with-profits policyholders who are not members. The payout will be a minimum of £500 for members, but the average windfall will be £4,000 overall.In securing the deal, Royal London has seen off advanced offers from the friendly society Liverpool Victoria, GE Capital and at least one other bidder.Scottish Life, which was advised by Morgan Stanley, said yesterday it decided to take up Royal London's offer after considering the bids over the weekend and after further discussions with interested parties that went on late into the night on Sunday.While it is understood that some bidders offered more than Royal London's price of £1.1bn, a Scottish Life spokesperson said: "We chose this because it was a clear offer. Some of the others were related to performance."However, analysts questioned whether Royal London had paid too much for Scottish Life, and said that the Colchester-based mutual might find it hard to make the deal pay.Under the terms of the purchase, Royal London values Scottish Life's existing business at £409m and its residual reserves at £286m. On top of that it is paying £405m for goodwill.Mike Yardley, chief executive of Royal London, denied that the goodwill sum was too high. He said: "Goodwill is not just about future business but also possible business, which we believe will increase dramatically with the capital injection we are putting in."He also added that speculation that the deal would leave Royal London open to bid attack was unfounded.
