Orange is a French multinational telecommunications corporation and represents the flagship brand of the France Telecom group for mobile, landline and Internet businesses, with 226 million customers as of December 2011 and, under the brand Orange Business Services, is one of the world leaders in providing telecommunication services to multinational companies. Formerly Orange PLC, the brand was created in the United Kingdom which became a subsidiary of Mannesmann in 1999 and was acquired by France Telecom in 2000.The inception of Orange brand was in 1990 in United Kingdom with the formation of "Microtel Communications Ltd" - a consortium initially formed by Pactel Corporation (American), British Aerospace, Millicom and Matra (French);and later, to be wholly owned by BAe.In July 1991, the Hong Kong based conglomerate - Hutchison Whampoa through a stock swap deal with BAe, acquires a controlling stake of 65% in Microtel, who by then had won a license to develop a mobile network in United Kingdom.Subsequently, Hutchison renames Microtel to Orange Personal Communications Services Ltd, and on 28 April 1994 'Orange' brand was launched in the UK mobile phone market. A holding company structure was adopted in 1995 with the establishment of Orange plc. In April 1996, Orange went public and floated on the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ,majority owned by Hutchison (48.22%),followed by BAe (21.1%).In June 1996, it becomes the youngest company to enter the FTSE 100, valued at £2.4 billion. And by July 1997, the growth strategy pays off and Orange reaches one million customers with the lowest churn rate, and best margins among its competitors.In September 1998 Orange is launched in Hong Kong and within six months, it climbs to number one position in Hong Kong Cellular market . In 1999, Orange brand is launched in Austria, Belgium and Switzerland; and licenses the brand to various operators in Hong Kong, Australia, Israel and India. In Israel, Orange gains more than 400,000 customers in its first year .The stint as a public company came to an end in October 1999, when it was acquired by the German conglomerate - Mannesmann AG for a price equivalent to 7,900 Euros per customer, i.e. 33 billion US dollars.By comparison, Deutsche Telekom paid 3,800 Euros per customer when it bought the UK competitor One-2-One, i.e. 8.2 billion pounds sterling.The Mannesmann's acquisition of Orange triggered Vodafone to make a hostile takeover bid for the German company. Shortly thereafter, in February 2000, Vodafone acquired Mannesmann for US$183 Billion and, decides to divest Orange as the EU regulations wouldn't allow it to hold two mobile licences.
Net income € 4.677.000.000 billion (2011)
Total assets € 35.292.000.000 billion (2011)