Orange boosts its profits

Orange has reported a pre-tax profit of €385m - before one-off costs for 2001.

This represents an improvement of 795 million euros on the 2000 figure.

Turnover increased by 25% to just short of 15.1 billion euros.

Core earnings rose by 86% to nearly 3.3 billion euros.

And there was a fourfold increase in operating income to 1.4 billion.

Orange says this is a "strong operational performance" and states that its results are ahead of its expectation at the time of its flotation in February, 2001.

It says it has become the UK's largest mobile phone operator, measured in terms of active customers, with a reported base of 12.4 million.

UK turnover increased by 27% to nearly 5.4 billion euros, whgile core earnings grew by 68% to nearly 1.3 billion.

Orange says it's also considering selling its stake in the Italian mobile venture, Wind.

It has also written down the value of Mobilcom, the German mobile phone company, from 3.428 billion euro to zero.