Belgian telecommunications company Orange has seen a 13.9% boost to its earnings and has enlarged its customer base by close to 5% in the first half of the year, partly driven by a recent acquisition of rival VOO.
In its financial update for the first half of 2024, Orange announced that it has gained 74,000 mobile postpaid customers and 18,000 cable customers – up 4.5% year on year in both. For cable broadband services, Orange has exceeded 1 million customers for the first time.
The company saw total revenues reach €977.6 million in the first half of the year, a 2.5% increase on the same period in 2023, thanks to an increase in retail service revenues. EBITDAaL (earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation, and after leases), a measure of profit, increased by 13.9% to €252.9 million.
Xavier Pichon, Orange CEO, said that the positive growth has been "thanks to the rapid and successful integration of VOO within Orange Belgium". Pichon added that for Orange's B2B (business to business) activities, a contract signed in September last year to provide services to the Flemish government "has also played a pivotal role in influencing these positive commercial results".
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In June 2023, Orange Belgium acquired a controlling 75% stake in VOO SA, another Belgian telecommunications company which operates in almost all of Wallonia and parts of Brussels. The deal valued VOO at €1.8 billion for 100% of the capital, meaning Orange Belgium paid around €1.35 billion for its 75% stake.
Chief financial officer Antoine Chouc said that the positive results were also due to winning litigations and seasonal effects, as well as changes in energy prices compared to last year. "We are now confident that we will improve our guidance for EBITDAaL and slightly exceed €535m for the year (previously between €515m and €535m), while also adhering to our capex targets (between €365m and €385m)."
