Orange not so bright after all

THE EUROPEAN Commission has cleared the way for Germany's T-Mobile to acquire Orange Netherlands from France Telecom. It found that "on the Dutch mobile retail market Orange has not been a particularly aggressive competitor."

Orange's motto previously was that "the future's bright, the future's Orange." But in the Netherlands the Orange brand is set to disappear. The INQ wonders whether the rights to the name will revert back to Hutchison.

The acquisition has been widely anticipated after Deutsche Telekom's Rene Obermann announced he was going to expand T-Mobile inside Europe.

France Telecom's Spanish acquisition, Amena, hasn't been faring too well either, fuelling speculation that it too might be ripe for a take-over.

Significantly the Commission said that the combined T-Mobile Netherlands would be the third largest in terms of revenues while being the second largest in terms of subscriber numbers.

With the former monopoly, KPN, being the leader that means that Vodafone Netherlands must be quite profitable for its size.

The Commission seems convinced that the loss of one Dutch operator won't hinder the chances of an MVNO getting a good deal from one of the remaining three.

This still leaves T-Mobile's ambitions to add subscribers unclear. Can it really afford to miss the chance to enter emerging markets before they, too, get overcrowded? µ

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