Orange reported a solid set of numbers for Q3, driven by “very high speed broadband and convergence”, with Spain and its Africa units also performing well.

The company said it had 25.5 million 4G customers in Europe as of 30 September, a 1.7x increase in one year, and 9.8 million customers of “convergent offers” (up 11 per cent).

As usual, Orange did not provide net profit figures for Q3, but said that adjusted EBITDA of €3.6 billion was up 1 per cent on an historic basis, on revenue of €10.3 billion, up 0.4 per cent.

Europe
Revenue in its home market was down 0.5 per cent to €4.8 billion, with the company noting lower revenue from national roaming contracts and the reduction of roaming prices in Europe, as well as growth in SIM-only deals.

Elsewhere in Europe, the picture was mixed. While the Spanish market saw growth of 5.9 per cent to €1.3 billion, the picture in Poland was bleaker, with revenue falling 7.4 per cent to €657 million.

The strength in Spain was attributed to growth in mobile services, which benefitted from new offers introduced since the end of 2015 and from 4G growth. The Belgium and Luxembourg group also saw growth, with mobile services stable as the impact of roaming price decreases was offset by customer base growth.

Weakness in Poland included a decline in mobile services, with continued ARPU erosion in line with the development of SIM-only, multi-SIM, and convergent offers.

As a group, the Europe region (which excludes France) increased 0.7 per cent to €2.7 billion.

MEA
For Africa and the Middle East, revenue increased 5.1 per cent on an historic basis to €1.4 billion, with the company having bought new businesses in the region.

“In Africa and the Middle East, where Orange Money customers now exceed 20 million, the increasing take-up of smartphones and our commercial strategy has translated into strong growth in mobile data revenues. The integration of the recently acquired operations in Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo is on track, with the latter two operations now consolidated,” Stephane Richard, CEO, said.

The company ended the period with  a total of 194.5 million mobile customers.

It confirmed that restated EBITDA will be greater than that in 2015 on a comparable basis, supported by “continued commercial momentum, investments, and efforts to improve the cost structure”.