Orange, Europe's number two mobile phone operator, reported a slowdown in customer growth with 2.3 million new customers in the second quarter of 2001, down from 2.6 million in the first quarter.
Orange, a unit of France Telecom, said its total customer base was up 52% from the same time last year at 35.5 million.
The group also reported a slowdown in Britain. It added 830,000 new UK customers in the second quarter, having added 1.2 million in the first three months of 2001.
Its total UK customer base was 11.9 million at the end of the second quarter, from 7.2 million at the same time in 2000.
'Orange continues to grow from strength to strength,' Chief Executive Jean Francois Pontal said in a statement.
'We are also maintaining our focus on building value, as reflected by our increasing proportion of contract customers in the UK.'
Orange UK added 222,000 new customers on to contract tariffs in the second quarter, taking the contract base to 3.4 million. The group said contract connections accounted for 27% of growth in the quarter, compared with 7% in the first quarter.
Vodafone Group Plc, the world's largest mobile phone operator, said on Thursday that the move had lifted its proportion of new customers signing contracts in the UK to 44% in the second quarter, up from 26% in the previous quarter.
Vodafone had reported a slowdown in growth in the second quarter, adding 3 million customers compared with 4.4 million in the first quarter. In the UK, new Vodafone customers tumbled to 269,000 in the second quarter from 620,000 in the first.
