Demand for mobile phones using pre-paid schemes has been falling across Europe after mobile companies decided to stop subsidizing cheap handsets. The operators are now focusing their energies on the much more profitable monthly contracts.
Vodafone announced that subscriber growth had slowed for the second consecutive quarter because of a fall in non-contract customers. Much of the drop-off at Orange is also understood to have been among pre-pay customers.
Orange, majority owned by France Telecom, added a total of 1.5 million new contract and pre-paid customers in the three months to September compared with 2.3 million in the second quarter. It has 37 million customers worldwide, which is still 41% more than a year ago.
But while demand has remained buoyant in France, Orange’s largest market, the telecoms market has experienced a sharp decline in pre-pay customers in Britain. Some 102,000 people bought pre-pay phones in the past three months compared with 608,000 in the second quarter.
In total, Orange UK attracted 320,000 users in the past three months compared with 830,000 in the second quarter. It has 12.2 million British customers and lays claim to having the UK’s largest number of customers who actively use their phones.
However, analysts say that Orange has not been able to match Vodafone’s growth in the lucrative British contract market. Vodafone said that in the UK it had added 100,000 more contract customers than in the previous quarter. Orange attracted 4,000 fewer contract customers, 218,000 in the past three months compared with 222,000 in the second quarter.
