Orange France doubles FMC customers in Q2

June 19, 2007 – Orange France has doubled the number of customers for its fixed/mobile convergence (FMC) service, known as Unik, since the end of March 2007.

Orange France has now sold 257,000 unlicensed mobile access (UMA) handsets for its dual mode GSM/Wi-Fi service, compared to 123,000 by the end of the March 2007.  This gives Orange a considerable lead over other European operators, with BT having just 40,000 customers for its UMA-based Fusion service by the end of the first quarter of 2007.  Emma Mohr-Mcclune, principal analyst for research firm Current Analysis, commented: “It’s certainly the most successful UMA service to date and UMA’s biggest success story.”

Orange also announced on 18 June that its Unik service will be available from 30,000 hotspots in France.  Part of the reason for the success of Unik is believed to be due to the large installed base of its Livebox gateways, with Orange reporting there were 4.675mn Liveboxes in use in Europe at the end of March 2007, of which 3.916mn were in France.  Mohr-McClune added that the service is easier to sell if positioned as an add-on service to broadband: “Orange has the ability to position and market Unik as a value-added service to what customers were already getting.”

Orange has also launched Unik in the Netherlands, Spain and the UK, and plans to aggressively market the service in the UK, Spain and Poland by the end of July 2007.  Other operators in Europe with UMA services include TeliaSonera’s HomeFree service in Denmark, BT’s Fusion service in the UK and Telecom Italia Mobile SpA’s Unico service in Italy.