Orange France has published information to clarify the impact on its business from the launch of France's fourth mobile operator, Free Mobile, on 10 January. Orange is the first operator to issue an official reaction, although all the operators have made various comments in the press. Orange said that while it saw a substantial increase in number porting requests in the first 48 hours after Free Mobile's launch, peaking at over 150,000 in a single day, these have since decreased tenfold. The operator noted that requests for the porting identity codes do not necessarily correspond to actual account terminations. Orange France lost a net 201,000 mobile subscribers between 1 January and 15 February, or approximately 0.7 percent of its total mobile customer base of slightly over 27 million at the end of 2011. That includes a gross loss of 1.04 million customers and 837,000 new additions over the same period. Orange partly attributes this sustained level of customer additions to its commercial counter-attack. The company made substantial price cuts, yet did not match Free Mobile's prices. It also cited the quality of its networks, based on regulator Arcep's figures, and strong improvement in customer statisfaction in 2011. The operator added that its Sosh low-cost brand had 90,000 customers, and the Orange Open quad-play range had 1.4 million customers as of 15 February. Finally, Orange said it may earn more revenue on its 2G/3G roaming agreement with Free Mobile than the EUR 1 billion over six years envisaged when the contract was signed last March. This is based on initial estimates of higher-than-expected Free Mobile traffic. Orange stressed however that the Free Mobile traffic could be higher without having a negative impact on its own customers.
