Africa’s second largest mobile carrier, Orange Telecom said its African and Middle East unit generated EUR3,8 billion in the third quarter of the year.
Orange’s result is coming about 24 hours after Africa’s largest mobile carrier, MTN released its result showing its revenue went down slightly to ZAR52 billion versus ZAR53 billion disclosed last year. Revenue from Nigeria fell by 3.3% to ZAR60 billion compared to ZAR62 billion last year.
In a freshly released disclosure, Orange’s operation in both regions saw a growth of 3% year on year.
As a global operations, Orange reported a gross revenue of EUR30,4 billion for the third quarter. Last year same quarter, its revenue was EUR30,2 billion. This is a growth of 0.5% year on year.
At the end of the quarter, Orange said “In Africa and the Middle East, the mobile customer base at 30 September 2016 was 113.5 million customers and included Tigo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (3.4 million customers) and Cellcom in Liberia (1.5 million customers), both of which were consolidated in the 3rd quarter. The trend in net additions improved significantly, with 103,000 net customer additions in the 3rd quarter after a decrease of 1.4 million customers in the 2nd quarter on a comparable basis.
Orange said it finalising the consolidation of its recent acquisitions. The company said “The four companies recently acquired in Africa have gradually been consolidated in the Group’s financial statements. Cellcom in Liberia and Tigo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were fully consolidated at 30 September 2016. The two subsidiaries acquired from the Bharti Airtel group in Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone will be consolidated in the 4th quarter”.
Within the quarter, Orange said its total subscriber base for the Orange Money across Africa and the Middle East is now 20 million. The company stated that it benefitted from the “increasing take-up of smartphones and our commercial strategy has translated into strong growth in mobile data revenues”. This is a +30% year on year growth.
