Orange

Orange S.A. provides various fixed telephony and mobile telecommunications, data transmission, and other value-added services to customers, businesses, and other telecommunications operators in France and internationally. It operates through France; Spain and Other European Countries; Africa and the Middle East; Enterprise; International Carriers & Shared Services; and Mobile Financial Services segments. 

The company offers mobile services, such as voice, SMS, and data; fixed broadband and narrowband services, as well as fixed network business solutions, including voice and data; and convergence packages. It also sells mobile handsets, mobile terminals, broadband equipment, connected devices, and accessories. In addition, the company provides IT and integration services comprising unified communication and collaboration services, such as LAN and telephony, consultancy, integration, and project management; hosting and infrastructure services, including cloud computing; customer relations management and other applications services; security services; and video conferencing, as well as sells related equipment. 

Further, it offers national and international roaming services; online advertising services; mobile virtual network operators, network sharing, and mobile financial services, as well as sells equipment to external distributors and brokers. Orange S.A. markets its products and services under the Orange brand. The company was formerly known as France Telecom and changed its name to Orange S.A. in July 2013. Orange S.A. was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France.

In 1792, under the French Revolution, the first communication network was developed to enable the rapid transmission of information in a warring and unsafe country. That was the optical telegraphy network of Claude Chappe. In 1878, after the invention of the electrical telegraph and then the invention of the telephone, the French State created a Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs. Telephone Services were added to the ministry when they were nationalised in 1889. However, it was not until 1923 that the second 'T' appeared and the department of P&T became PTT.

In 1941, a General Direction of Telecommunications was created within this ministry. Then, in 1944, the National Centre of Telecommunications Studies was created to develop the telecommunications industry in France. In the 1970s, France attempted to make up for its delay in developing communications infrastructure, compared to other countries, by launching the programme “Delta LP”. It was at the time when the majority of the local loop was built; that is all the cables linking the users to the operator. Moreover, with the help of French manufacturers, digital switching, the Minitel and the GSM standard were invented by engineers and CNET researchers.

Until 1988, France Télécom was known as the direction générale des Télécommunications, a division of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. It became autonomous in 1990. This was in response to a European directive, aimed at making competition mandatory in public services from 1 January 1998. The 2 July 1990 Bill changed France Télécom into an operator of public law, with Marcel Roulet as the first Chairman. Since then, the company has had a separate body corporate from the State and acquired financial autonomy. It was privatised by Lionel Jospin's Plural Left government starting on 1 January 1998. The French government, both directly and through its holding company, ERAP continues to hold a stake of almost 27% in the company. In addition, the government Conseil of Ministers names the CEO.

In 1997, the capital of the new public company was successfully floated whereas the dot-com bubble phenomenon made the stock exchanges bullish. A second share offering occurred in 1998. France Télécom got behind in the internationalization launched by its international competitors such as Vodafone, thus, it started looking for targets at the highest speculation rate of the dot-com bubble. Moreover, its alliance with Deutsche Telekom based on a reciprocal capital contribution of 2% broke off when Deutsche Telekom announced that they were planning to do business with Telecom Italia without letting the French know – even if this project ended up failing.

In July 1991, Hutchison Telecom, a UK subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa, acquired a controlling stake in Microtel Communications Ltd, which by then had acquired a licence to develop a mobile network in the United Kingdom. Hutchison renamed Microtel to Orange Personal Communications Services Ltd, and on 28 April 1994, the Orange brand was launched in the UK mobile phone market. A holding company structure was adopted in 1995 with the establishment of Orange plc. In April 1996, Orange went public and floated on the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, majority-owned by Hutchison, followed by BAe. In June 1996, it became the youngest company to enter the FTSE 100, valued at £2.4 billion.

In October 1999, the German conglomerate Mannesmann AG acquired Orange for a price equivalent to €7,900 per customer, i.e. US$33bn. Mannesmann's acquisition of Orange triggered Vodafone to make a hostile takeover bid for Mannesmann. Shortly thereafter, in February 2000, Vodafone acquired Mannesmann for US$183 billion and decided to divest Orange because the EU regulations wouldn't allow it to hold two mobile licences. In August 2000, France Télécom bought Orange plc from Vodafone for a total estimated cost of €39.7 bn. At the time, France Télécom also bought stakes in several other international firms, of which some have since been sold back. Through this process, France Télécom became the fourth biggest global operator. The mobile telephone operations of Orange plc were merged with the majority of the mobile operations of France Télécom, forming the new group Orange S.A.

On 13 February 2001, Orange S.A. was listed on the Euronext Paris stock exchange with an initial public offering of 95 Euros per share, with a secondary listing in London. In May 2001, Orange S.A. was listed on the CAC 40, the benchmark stock market index of the top 40 French companies in terms of market capitalisation. In June 2001, the France Telecom Mobile brands Itinéris, OLA, and Mobicarte were replaced by the Orange brand. On 21 November 2003, France Telecom withdrew 13.7% of Orange's shares traded on the Paris stock exchange.

 On 2 October 2002, the CEO, Thierry Breton was given the task of turning the company around after the company became crippled by debt following the drop in the company's stock price. On 30 September 2002, the company's stock price was €6.94, down from €219 on 2 March 2000. France Télécom was the second most indebted company worldwide in terms of short-term liabilities. T

he company obtained 15bn of debt adjustment that needed to be borne by banks and investors, another 15bn as a capital increase from the French State since it was still the majority shareholder, and an additional 15bn in cash from internal savings. On 25 February 2005, Thierry Breton was appointed Minister of Finance and Industry and Didier Lombard, who had been head of the firm's new technologies division, replaced him as CEO.

The NeXT scheme was the recovery plan for France Télécom which aimed at, among other things, reducing costs, especially wage costs, carrying on a converging policy for its products and services, and grouping together all the brands under a single brand, except for the activities dealing with fixed-line telephone which would stay under the designation 'France Télécom'. Consequently, this led to the disappearance of a number of brands.

From 1 June 2006, France Télécom tried to commercialize all its products under a single worldwide brand, becoming the sole brand of the France Telecom group for Internet, television and mobile services in the majority of countries in which Orange operated. Orange Business Services became the brand for all its business services offerings worldwide, replacing the Equant brand. In June 2007, Orange and Mid Europa Partners acquired Austrian mobile network company One, re-branding it as Orange Austria. In 2012, it was sold to Hutchison 3G and the Orange Austria brand was terminated. 

In November 2008, Orange launched five Orange Cinema Series channels. To do so, Orange bought the exclusive rights from Warner Bros. for the first runs of all new films, previously held by TPS Star, as well as all films in its catalogue and rights to the film catalogues of Gaumont, HBO and MGM. Orange also secured exclusive rights to broadcast Saturday evening Ligue 1 football matches from the French Football Federation. Free accused Orange of tied-selling as the Orange channels were only available to its subscribers. In June 2008, the firm abandoned a €27 billion bid for Swedish operator TeliaSonera after the two companies failed to agree on terms. 

In 2008, Orange was given permission from Apple to sell the iPhone in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Orange's African markets. On 8 September 2009, Orange and T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom announced they were in advanced talks to merge their UK operations to create the largest mobile operator with 37% of the market. Both T-Mobile and Orange brands were kept due to differences in their targeted markets. T-Mobile remained the budget-conscious offering and Orange the premium one, although there was some overlap as of February 2011. 

On 5 April 2009, Orange won an Arbitration Court case against Orascom Telecom, forcing Orascom to transfer its stake in Mobinil to Orange at a price of LE 441,658 per Mobinil share. On 28 October 2009, Orange changed the name of its Luxembourgish telecommunication company VOXMobile to Orange. On 5 November 2009, Orange Armenia launched telecommunication services in Armenia. On 11 December 2009, Egypt's regulator approved an offer from a unit of France Telecom to buy Mobinil. In 2010, Orange's CEO, Didier Lombard, was replaced by Stéphane Richard. The company was also reorganised internally, most notably with the arrival of former Culture Minister Christine Albanel as head of communications for the group. In mid-April 2010, Orange UK announced that it would outsource the management of its broadband network to BT. This announcement was greeted positively by broadband commentators, who felt that the move was likely to improve Orange's broadband quality and customer services. 

On 2 March 2012, Didier Lombard, who remained a special advisor to Stéphane Richard, left the company. His departure was shadowed by controversy over his stock options: he was suspected of having stayed with the company longer to wait for the France Telecom share to recover and then exercise his stock option. The share was trading at around €16, whereas his stock options were at €23. On 3 February 2012, Hutchison Whampoa announced that it would buy Orange Austria for US$1.7 billion. The deal closed on 3 January 2013, and the Orange brand was phased out on 19 August 2013, when its operations were merged into 3. In March 2012, France Télécom bought 93.9% of Mobinil, an Egyptian mobile operator, from Naguib Sawiris's Orascom Telecom Media and Technology in an effort to double its revenue in MENA by 2015. 

On 28 May 2013 at the Annual Shareholders' Meeting, shareholders approved changing the name of the group to Orange S.A. This became effective on 1 July, that same year. In September 2014, Orange agreed on a deal to acquire Spanish firm Jazztel for a fee of around €3.4 billion. As of October 2018, Orange has teamed up with Google in order to install a transatlantic undersea cable, Dunant, to share data between the United States and France at faster speeds. Planned to begin operation in 2020, the fibre-based cable has a design capacity of 250 terabits per second and will span approximately 6600 kilometres in length.in July 2020, Orange launched a satellite-based home broadband service utilising the Eutelsat Konnect satellite.

"Our customers’ practices and needs are evolving. They want simple solutions that are truly useful. They seek flawless connectivity, personalized responses and good value for money. And this is what makes our mission so meaningful: to be ‘always in touch to connect what’s essential in your life.’"

“The digital era we now operate in is transforming our day-to-day lives, our behaviour and our interaction with our environment. In this hyper-connected world, we all experience the digital transition in our own way, according to our preferences and possibilities. To be positive, this revolution must include everyone, but also adapt to every person’s aspirations and essentials. This is how it will become a human revolution, grounded in everyday life.”