A major digital player in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, Orange recently unveiled its new strategic plan. Named “Leading the Future”, its goal is to promote recognized excellence in its core business, networks, through greater use of AI and data, and to capitalize on infrastructure in countries where the Group is present in the business segment and to strengthen Orange’s position in cybersecurity.
It was during the presentation of the Group’s 2022 results that Christel Heidemann, Orange’s chief executive officer since April last year, introduced “Lead the furure”.
She states:
“The quality of our infrastructure, in particular our position as a fiber pioneer, our customer satisfaction (NPS) and the experience of our teams, as well as our strong financial position, are unrivaled assets in the market. In addition, through our excellence in connectivity, security and resiliency, Orange benefits from a unique position in the industry. The goal of our plan is to enhance and build on these strengths to position Orange as a group that is building the future of telecommunications and digital solutions.”
This plan is based on four pillars:
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Improving core business with AI and data
Orange is Europe’s leader in fiber deployment, with the Group deploying 46 million FTTH outlets as of the end of 2022, almost a third of the outlets deployed on the continent.
The Group intends to invest heavily to strengthen its leadership in terms of customer experience. To this end, Orange will increase its use of AI and data to offer its customers a personalized and seamless experience across digital and physical channels.
As such, he intends to create a new industrial model for managing more efficient, sustainable and efficient networks. “Network integration factories” will also accelerate the automation and virtualization of the network, as well as the provision of new services.
The “next generation” commercial offering under its brand in metropolitan France will strengthen its satellite offering in 2023: a partnership with Eutelsat will allow the most isolated customers, individuals or companies, to benefit from improved ultra-high speeds. experience at the price of a fiber optic offer with the new Konnect VHTS satellite.
On the Spanish side, the merger agreement signed last July with MásMóvil will allow the future venture to have the financial capacity and scale needed to continue investing.
Through this network leadership, customer satisfaction and enhanced offerings, Orange aims to improve its average return per offer (ARPO) despite challenging macro conditions and intense competition.
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Infrastructure Capitalization
The Group intends to continue investing in the deployment of fixed and mobile networks within a responsible financial system, based on strategic partnerships.
In the fixed network, Orange will roll out 5 million additional outlets in Europe, where the investment peak reached in 2022 is set to drop from 18% of its turnover to around 15%, and 2 million outlets in Africa and the Middle East by 2025. .
On the mobile network, Orange will accelerate the valuation of its passive infrastructures by raising the rental rate of third-party operators on mobile sites owned by TOTEM, its subsidiary, the European TowerCo group, from 1.37 in 2022 to 1.5 by 2026.
The group will continue to implement its plan to upgrade fixed and mobile networks to ultra-high speeds with the decommissioning of copper networks in France and 2G and 3G in all European countries by 2030. In Africa, Orange will continue to roll out fixed and mobile networks (4G and 5G) to support the steady growth of its results and support the economic and social development of the continent.
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Transformation of Orange Business Services to accelerate operations in the business segment and strengthen the position of Orange in the field of cybersecurity.
Orange is radically changing its traditional B2B telecommunications operator model to adapt to a new market agreement where the boundaries between networks and digital services are blurring. Orange Business Services evolves and becomes Orange Business in an effort to be closer to customer problems and to position itself as a leader in next generation connectivity solutions.
These ambitions are based on her experience, as well as a refocusing of her product portfolio, the evolution of her business model, and a major cost optimization program. This transformation plan should enable Orange Business to return to profitability growth (EBITDAaL) no later than 2025.
In addition, Orange has set itself the goal of becoming a European leader in the fast-growing cybersecurity market and plans to reach a turnover of 1.3 billion euros by 2025. To achieve this goal, Orange Cyberdefense will continue its organic growth and its targeted acquisition strategy, accelerating in the pro/SME market and opening up new markets such as B2C.
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Continued growth in Africa and the Middle East
The Africa and Middle East area has been a growth driver for the Group for many years and will remain at the center of its strategy: 1 in 10 Africans is an Orange customer. The Group will continue to invest in network rollouts to strengthen its position and expects sales to grow at an average of +7% per year from 2022 to 2025, as well as a significant increase in profitability over the same period.
In addition, it will accelerate the transformation of Orange Money, which returned to growth at the end of 2022 to move towards a digital platform model that will offer services beyond transfers and payments. This service will be offered to all consumers, whether they are Orange customers or not.
The group will also invest in the continent’s digital inclusion by continuing to roll out its Orange Digital Hubs.
A new business model that is more efficient, inclusive and environmentally friendly.
This plan provides for the introduction of a new business model based on an ambitious policy of social and environmental responsibility.
The group, which has implemented a program to reduce CO2 emissions by more than 30%, has committed to reducing Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions by 45% by 2030 (base year 2020).
It announces the acceleration of its mobile phone recycling program in Europe, which will increase from 23.1% today to over 30% by 2025. The long-term goal of achieving Net Zero Carbon d 2040 remains unchanged.
People, organizational agility and process simplification will be at the heart of this transformation.