Inside Orange’s retail plans for SA

·31 Jul 2014

The South African arm of french telecommunications giant, Orange, says it plans to open the first Orange store in South Africa before the end of the year.

Orange, through its SA subsidiary, Orange Horizons, had previously teamed up with Nashua Mobile to offer a branding presence in its stores.

In April however, Reunert said that Nashua Mobile would wind down completely within the next six months saying that it was unlikely that the business would generate acceptable returns in future.

Sebastien Crozier, CEO of Orange Horizons, told BusinessTech: “Orange is looking into the possibility of opening its own Orange branded flagship stores, as well as the possibility of partnering with existing retailers to establish a presence in their stores.”

“We are currently discussing this possibility with some potential partners in the main cities of the country. We plan to open the first Orange store in the Western Cape in the 4th quarter of 2014, or the first quarter of 2015.”

Crozier stressed though that, while the operator does not plan to open many Orange branded stores, “they are of interest to us, especially as the range of products we offer is constantly expanding”.

“When you have an online store with such a high volume of products, it is definitely worthwhile to have a physical presence, which will provide a platform for hands-on customer service and reassurance.”

Crozier told BusinessTech recently that, in South Africa, Orange has been able to increase turnover with very little capex.

“By the end of the year, we should be at breakeven,” Crozier said. “We aren’t anxious, our turnover is growing faster than we expected.”

He said that the group will up its current modest capex to invest in its ISP ambitions.

“We feel that ISPs in South Africa do not bring enough value to the customer, so mobile data, voice over IP (VoIP). We feel we can bring more to the end customer, he said alluding to a triple play offering including access to TV all on the same subscription.”

The group already sells products in SA through its website, and has a business unit serving high profile companies in the mining, and petroleum industry.