Orange France has acquired 100 percent of local events and leisure information internet group Cityvox to develop its internet services and increase the audience on its portals. Founded in 1999 by Bertrand Bigay and Michel Athenour, Citivox's www.cityvox.fr, www.cinefil.com, www.concerts.fr and www.spectacles.fr sites attract over 2.2 million unique visitors each month and have more than 350,000 regular contributors. For several years now, France Telecom has been entrusting Cityvox with managing the "in town" section on the orange.fr site. For its part, Cityvox has been working with Orange Publicite since 2002 for marketing its advertising space. Orange's new ambition for Cityvox covers further strengthening Orange's positioning on local content and developing new local services, notably in mobility, offering local advertisers a better presence on digital media and generating more advertising revenues, and ramping up Cityvox's model at international level, drawing on Orange's worldwide presence. According to Les Echos, the transaction cost Orange slightly under EUR 30 million. Citivox doubled its visitors and made a small profit on a turnover up 65 percent to EUR 3.3 million in its fiscal year to the end of June. The company expects to have more than EUR 5 million of revenues in the current year.
