The Austrian mobile operator ONE, owned by Mid Europa Partners (65%) and France Telecom (35%), will adopt the Orange brand from next Monday. Austria will thereby become the second country in a week to join a community of 27 other Orange countries representing over 115 million customers following the launch of operations in Kenya under the Orange brand last Wednesday

In Austria, ONE is currently the third largest mobile operator with two million customers and a market share close to 20 per cent. Invested EUR 20 million in the name change to Orange, ONE will become part of the fifth largest mobile operator in the world.

All elements of the new brand will be deployed over the weekend throughout the 90 Orange stores and 1,700 dealers across Austria. During the coming days, all two million ONE customers will be informed about this via SMSs.

Orange is the brand used by France Telecom for its mobile network operator and Internet service provider subsidiaries. The brand was created in 1994 for Hutchison Telecom’s UK mobile phone network, which was acquired by France Telecom in 2001.

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