Payment of a dividend of 0.70 euros per share for the full year 2018 (if approved at the 2019 Annual General Meeting). The dividend increase of 0.05 euros will be included in the interim dividend (0.30 euros per share), which is expected to be paid on 6 December 2018
For 2019 and 2020, growth in adjusted EBITDA, a reduction in CAPEX and growth in Operating Cash Flow.
Commenting on the publication of the 2018 third quarter results, Stéphane Richard, Chairman and CEO of the Orange Group, said: “The Group has maintained its strong momentum during this third quarter, with increased revenues of +0.6% despite particularly intense competition in our key markets, while maintaining solid EBITDA growth of +3.0%, an indication of the appropriateness of our strategy.
In France, in spite of the competitive context, we increased our mobile contract base by 82,000 customers and our fibre base by 157,000 customers. This commercial performance was underpinned by our investments in our networks (Orange was recently ranked first by ARCEP for the quality of its mobile network for the 8th successive year) and by a targeted marketing strategy, combining improved pricing focusing on value and the launch of a new broadband double-play offer by Sosh. Revenue growth and successful cost management have enabled Orange France to confirm its continued EBITDA improvement.
A similar strategy has supported Orange Spain’s broadband sales and TV subscriptions performance thanks to investments in fibre and has also enabled it to respond in a targeted way to aggressive moves by our competitors in the mobile business.
In Europe, where growth reached +1.6% thanks to our convergence strategy, I’d like in particular to highlight the important progress made by Orange Poland in the development of its “Orange One” strategy that led to a return to growth during the quarter.
Our African and Middle East activities are maintaining a good level of growth notwithstanding specific operational challenges in the Côte d’Ivoire. I’d like to underline in particular the strong performance in Burkina Faso and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which also returned to growth this quarter.
Finally, Orange Business Services continues its progress with sustained momentum in the areas of cybersecurity and cloud services.”
The financial data in this press release are unaudited.
In order to make 2017 data comparable with that of 2018, the 2017 results are adjusted to reflect the changes in the scope of consolidation and foreign exchange fluctuations during the period. At the end of September, their impact was respectively, +71 and -194 million euros in revenues, -2 and -37 million euros in adjusted EBITDA, +1 and -26 million euros in CAPEX and -3 and -10 million euros in operating cash flow. The changes in the scope of consolidation primarily resulted from the consolidation of Business & Decision, and foreign exchange fluctuations resulted mainly from the variation in the value of the U.S. dollar, the Egyptian pound, the Jordanian dinar and the Guinean franc against the euro.
Orange (NYSE: FTE)