News
French incumbent opens flagship store in Cairo, offers customers range of affordable own-brand smartphones.
Orange on Tuesday announced that its Egyptian unit Mobinil has officially adopted the Orange brand.
To coincide with the rebranding, Orange has opened one of its flagship ‘Smart’ stores in Cairo, which lets prospective customers try out various devices and offerings, such as mobile money services. In total, 250 retail outlets and 20,000 points of sale will adopt the Orange brand.
"We are delighted to bring the Orange brand to this important market on this momentous day in our history," said Orange CEO Stéphane Richard, in a statement. "Today Orange is a mobile operator in Egypt, but we want to be much more than that in the future. We want to be a true digital player and help the Egyptian economy and its people to draw the benefits of the digital age."
The launch of the Orange brand in Egypt also heralds the arrival of the French incumbent’s line of affordable own-brand smartphones designed to drive mobile data uptake among customers in the Middle East and Africa.
"We are part of a truly international group with all the backing that brings," said Orange Egypt CEO Yves Gauthier. "In addition to benefiting from group-wide synergies and know-how, we are adopting the Orange strategy to place the customer experience at the heart of what we do so that we can deliver on our promise ‘to connect our customers to what is essential in their lives’.
Egypt is Orange’s biggest single market in terms of mobile customers, boasting 33.4 million subscribers at the end of December 2015. With a 33.2% share of the mobile market, Orange Egypt is the country’s second-largest operator behind Vodafone.
Egypt also accounted for 27% of revenues generated by Orange in the Middle East and Africa in the fourth quarter.
Orange owns approximately 99% of its Egyptian arm, having agreed to acquire the remaining 5% held by Orascom Telecom Media and Technology (OTMT) in February 2015.
