TMCnet News
: Orange acquires a 34% minority interest in Skyrock's web operationsNov 04, 2011 (M2 PRESSWIRE via COMTEX) -- Orange has acquired a 34.15% minority interest in Cascadia, the company newly formed to hold Skyrock's web operations, for 14 million euros The acquisition will strengthen Orange's position in the 12-24 age group, where Skyrock.com is the leading blog platform in France in terms of pages viewed (nearly one billion per month) Orange has acquired a 34.15% interest in Cascadia for 14 million euros. This newly-formed company combines the web and mobile operations of Skyrock, France's leading radio station in the 12-24 age group. Cascadia's leading asset is the Skyrock.com blog platform. Skyrock's web operations are concentrated in the Skyrock.com blog platform, the leading platform in France in terms of pages viewed (nearly one billion per month) and the third in terms of unique visitors (8.57 million unique visitors in September 20111). With more than 33 million active blogs, the platform has an audience share of 83% in the 12-24 age group. Skyrock is a pioneer in new digital communication services: starting out with blogs and instant messaging, and more recently a participatory questions and answers service (kwest), the group is now exploring future geo-localized and group messaging services for mobile users. This acquisition is a new milestone in Orange's digital strategy, which aims to provide continual improvement of the customer experience on its networks through the wealth and quality of its services for interacting, exploring and sharing. For Skyrock, this is a tremendous opportunity to develop its services in new digital territories. Backed by a leading player in the mobile and Internet markets of Europe and Africa, the association with Orange opens up new prospects for growth across all connected screens (mobiles, tablets and TV), and in particular in community-based services. In the footsteps of Deezer and Dailymotion, Skyrock.com will enrich the editorial knowhow, community-based content, monetization capacity and technologies for sharing within the digital ecosystem of Orange and the Group's partner companies. Several commercial agreements were signed in parallel to leverage these synergies: distribution agreement with Dailymotion to support the promotion of the Skyrock.com site on Dailymotion and the mutual visibility of each on both sites; service agreement with Orange (and its service suites) giving it access to the design and development expertise of the Skyrock.com teams; and advertising agreement with Deezer and Orange Liveradio allowing the advertising department of Skyrock to market certain audio inventories. As Elie Girard, Executive Vice President in charge of Group Strategy and Development, said: "This acquisition is another illustration of the role Orange intends to play on the web. Following the acquisition of stakes in Deezer and Dailymotion, Orange is strengthening its positions in content aggregation. This enables us to be even more receptive to our customers and particularly the 12-24 age group. In addition, we will benefit from the web expertise of the Skyrock teams in developing supplementary services to be integrated into the Orange sites." (1) Source: ComScore Press contacts: +33 1 44 44 93 93 Olivier Emberger, [email protected] Tom Wright, [email protected] About Orange France Telecom-Orange is one of the world's leading telecommunications operators with 170,000 employees worldwide, including 102,000 employees in France, and sales of 22.6 billion euros in the first semester 2011. Present in 35 countries, the Group had a customer base of 217.3 million customers at 30 June 2011, including 143 million customers under the Orange brand, the Group's single brand for internet, television and mobile services in the majority of countries where the company operates. At 30 June 2011, the Group had 158.3 million mobile customers and 14 million broadband internet (ADSL, fibre) customers worldwide. Orange is one of the main European operators for mobile and broadband internet services and, under the brand Orange Business Services, is one of the world leaders in providing telecommunication services to multinational companies. With its industrial project, "conquests 2015", Orange is simultaneously addressing its employees, customers and shareholders, as well as the society in which the company operates, through a concrete set of action plans. These commitments are expressed through a new vision of human resources for employees; through the deployment of a network infrastructure upon which the Group will build its future growth; through the Group's ambition to offer a superior customer experience thanks in particular to improved quality of service; and through the acceleration of international development France Telecom (NYSE:FTE) is listed on Euronext Paris (compartment A) and on the New York Stock Exchange. For more information (on the internet and on your mobile): www.orange.com, www.orange-business.com, www.orange-innovation.tv Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trade marks of Orange Brand Services Limited, Orange France or France Telecom. ((M2 Communications disclaims all liability for information provided within M2 PressWIRE. Data supplied by named party/parties. Further information on M2 PressWIRE can be obtained at http://www.presswire.net on the world wide web. Inquiries to [email protected]. |