(Bloomberg) -- Orange SA reported third quarter sales growth after the French telecommunications operator’s premium bundles helped it keep more customers from defecting to rivals.
Sales rose 1.6% to €10 billion ($11 billion) in the third quarter, the company said in a statement on Thursday. That compared to the €9.99 billion analysts had forecast, according to the average of a Bloomberg survey.
Orange France Chief Executive Officer Jean-François Fallacher said in a call with investors on Thursday that the company’s biggest business wasn’t impacted by new bundled offers from rivals. The results were a relief for analysts and investors, who were watching for signs that lower prices from competitors, such as Free and Bouygues, had cut into sales.
Orange shares rose 1.5% to €10.28 at 10:09 a.m. in Paris. The stock is little changed this year.
Still, Orange, which has historically resisted price pressure on its home turf by marketing itself as a higher-end service, discounted some of its packages this month as it attempts to lower customer turnover. The company lost 14,000 French converged customers, who buy both mobile and fixed service from Orange, in the quarter on top of 17,000 in the second quarter, Fallacher said.
“We are not yet happy with this,” Fallacher said in the call. Orange wants to stabilize its converged customer base by the second quarter of next year.
The company is also facing price pressure in Spain, where it recently merged its local business with smaller operator Masmovil Ibercom SA. Heavy competition in Europe has eroded earnings across the telecom industry, which has been lobbying regulators to allow more consolidation.
Orange’s overall adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization before leases, rose 2.7% in the quarter from a year ago to €3.35 billion.
Revenue in Africa and the Middle East, the company’s second-largest business unit, rose 10.5% on surging demand for mobile data, broadband and the Orange Money service, the company said.
Sales in the rest of Europe fell 2.1% in the period because of a decline in the company’s wholesale business on the continent. Revenue for Orange Business, which provides cloud, cybersecurity and other services to corporate customers, also fell 2.6%.
(Updates with additional details throughout)
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