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France Télécom (, ) (often spelled France Telecom, without the accents, in non-French text) is the main telecommunication company in France. It currently employs about 220,000 people and has nearly 90 million customers worldwide. For the last twelve months ending Sep 2004 it had revenue of 60.11 billion dollars. The current CEO is Didier Lombard.
History
Up to 1988, France Télécom was known as the Direction Générale des Télécommunications, a division of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. It became autonomous in 1990. It ceased to be a state monopoly on January 1 1998. Its headquarters are in Paris, 7 Place D'Alleray.
Recent acquisitions and divestitures
In August of 2005 FT acquired a 77% ownership in the Spanish mobile phone company Amena.
One of its most important subsidiaries was Telecom Argentina; France Télécom sold most of its shares in 2003 at the same time as it sold CTE Salvador, and now only owns approximately 1% of Telecom Argentina.
Subsidiaries
France Télécom is a communications access provider offering customers access through multiple platforms. The four key platforms France Télécom operates are:
- fixed line telephone under the brand France Télécom (mainly in France and Poland).
- broadband access & mobile phone telephony through its Orange SA brand.
- most recently, IPTV, though currently only in France, with MaLigne TV.
France Télécom has already begun merging the different internal divisions managing each platform and plans to rebrand each service to the Orange name starting in 2006. (See "Wanadoo is to make way for Orange").
France Telecom is present in the US through its Equant entreprise services and its venture capital arm, Innovacom as well as two R&D labs: one in Boston and the other in South San Francisco, California.
In 2004 France Télécom is likely to have to pay back €1 billion in alleged unlawful subsidies (in breach of state aid rules) it received from the French government, following an 18-month investigation by Mario Monti, the EC Competition Commissioner. It is understood that both France Télécom and the French government are appealing this decision.
The former CEO of France Télécom Thierry Breton was appointed in 2002 after leaving his previous company Thomson SA (formerly THOMSON Multimedia SA, owner of the legendary American brand RCA) where he served as the CEO. On February 25, 2005, he has been appointed minister of finance and industries.
See also
External links
- France Télécom website
- Pages jaunes – the Yellow Pages by France Télécom
Communications in France | Telecommunications companies of France
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"France Télécom"