20000108

France Telecom wins 10 m mobile clients

PARIS: The number of subscribers to France Telecom's mobile phone services passed the 10 million mark in 1999 and the top French telecommunications operator said on Thursday it expects further growth this year.

France Telecom's mobile phone services should reach "a minimum" of 40 to 45 percent of the French population by the end of 2000 from 33 percent at present, said Didier Quillot, commercial director of the firm's mobile phone unit Itineris.

And they should reach 70 percent of French people "in 2002 or 2003 at the latest", he added.

"We think growth is not over in mobile phones...I do not think we have reached a plateau," he said in a conference call.

"Our goal is very clearly to strengthen our position as (France's) leading mobile telephone operator. In 1999 we did not lose any market share. The goal for 2000 is to perform just as well."

France Telecom said its market share was near 50 percent in December, and about the same for the whole of 1999.

"I do not think any other operator in the world reached the level of sales -- after taking cancellations into account -- that we reached in December," Quillot said.

France Telecom registered 1.2 million net new mobile phone subscribers in December, twice as many as in December 1998, taking its total to 10 million -- 9.8 million in France and 200,000 in its overseas territories.

Meanwhile, rival Cegetel said that by end-1999 it had registered more than 7.2 million mobile phone clients -- an increase of over three million on 1998 -- and said last year's result was boosted by a record one million clients who joined in December alone.

Quillot confirmed Itineris, France Telecom's mobile phone unit, had registered 1.5 million new subscribers in December before cancellations, and said prepaid packages had accounted for "slightly over 50 percent of sales".

"I think prepaid offers are an important structural trend in all European countries," he said.

However he stressed that December sales had been exceptional -- retailer The Phone House said sales had climbed to three million from 1.45 million a year earlier. "You won't see that pattern throughout the months of 2000," Quillot warned.

Over the full year of 1998, the French market totalled 11.21 million mobile phone subscribers, with 5.55 million for France Telecom, 4.25 million for Vivendi unit Cegetel's SFR mobile group and 1.41 million for Bouygues Telecom .

Quillot said that unlike its competitors France Telecom had made no commercial offer involving free phone calls in December. "We made this decision because we believe free call offers destroy value and can place heavy risks in terms of network service quality on operators' shoulders," he said.

He said however, that like SFR and Bouygues Telecom, Itineris subsidised mobile telephone sets. He also said there would be a rise in the price of some packages that included a telephone set and a subscription starting from this month.

The positive outlook for France Telecom on the French mobile phone market has not been enough to stop the company's stock slide. France Telecom shares ended 1.69 percent lower on Thursday at 116 euros after touching a low of 111.4 euros on heavy volume.

France Telecom has been suffering in step with the European telecoms sector. But talks about the future of Global One, the joint venture for big business with Deutsche Telekom and Sprint are not seen as having any special impact.-Reuters