International telecoms giant Orange Group has published its financial results for the three months ended 30 September 2013, reporting a 4.0% year-on-year drop in consolidated revenues to EUR10.162 billion (USD13.998 billion). EBITDA for the period under review slumped 7.0% year-on-year to EUR3.366 billion from EUR3.618 billion in 3Q12, while operating income decreased by 13.5% to EUR2.072 billion. CAPEX for the third quarter of the year, however, rose by 6.0% to EUR1.293 billion led by EUR400 million in investments in fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and Long Term Evolution (LTE) infrastructure in Orange’s domestic market. The ratio of CAPEX to revenues was slightly improved by 1.2 percentage points to 12.7% compared to 3Q12.
In operational terms, Orange reported a consolidated total of 232.5 million subscribers, corresponding to a 2.1% annual increase, including a 7% surge in the overall mobile subscriber base to 174.6 million. In its domestic market, Orange reported that its subscriber base reached 26.77 million customers, a marginal 1.0% increase year-on-year (+298,000 net additions), while Africa and the Middle East contributed a total of 84.6 million, an increase of 6.8% y-o-y, mainly led by Mali, Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire. Elsewhere, Orange reported subscriber growth in the likes of Spain, Poland, Moldova and Dominican Republic, while Belgium, Slovakia and Madagascar saw their customer bases contract.
Commenting on the results for the first nine months of 2013, Orange chairman and CEO Stephane Richard said: ‘ In France, we recorded our best net sales figures for three years, adding around 300,000 new customers, mainly on high-end tariffs such as Origami and Open. The Africa and Middle East region posted sales growth of more than 4%. Overall, these results give us confidence that we will achieve our 2013 objectives and reinforce our ambitions for 2014.’