Orange goes global for £6bn

STRONG growth outside its core markets of the UK and France helped mobile phone operator Orange to boost first-half revenues 7% to e8.6bn (£6bn).

Chief executive Sol Trujillo said he was particularly pleased with the figures because 'they show that we now have a clear balance across all the matrix within the group'.

He added: 'Earnings before interest, tax depreciation and amortisation grew by 42% on the back of a strong improvement in margins.'

Total operating income rose 68% to e2.1bn in the six months to the end of June. Trujillo said while the rest of the world operations increased their earnings by 26% in the half, those in France were up by 5%. Although the UK rose by 9% in sterling terms it fell by 0.5% in euro terms.

Trujillo said the best performance outside France and the UK was in Switzerland, where earnings more than quadrupled. He said the recovery in France, which had produced no growth in the first quarter, was impressive. Learn, the new in-store teaching campaign, was launched in the UK 10 weeks ago and had so far 'taught' 500,000 Orange customers to use new services or devices.

BT today launched its re-entry into the mobile market two years after demerging its former Cellnet subsidiary mmO2. It will create a virtual network using T-Mobile's service which it said will be aimed at families.