Iliad’s Free Mobile, which launched its mobile services in France at the beginning of the year, signed up 2.6 million subscribers by the end of the first quarter or almost 4% of the country’s mobile market in just 80 days.
According to Free Mobile’s figures, the total French market had grown by 854,000 subscribers in Q1, suggesting that the carrier’s 2.6 million customers included a substantial number of defections from rivals. For instance, the market leading Orange France lost 615,000 mobile customers following Free’s launch on January 10th.
Free also added that its subscriber base was distributed evenly between the two of its “no-contract” plans, between the Free community and newcomers, and between subscriptions with mobile number portability and those with a new phone number assigned. “With its commercial and price innovations, Free Mobile has liberated conventions and galvanized a market that had been at a standstill for many long years,” they said in a statement.
[Via: MobileBusinessBriefing]