Hutch to phase out Orange this year

Hutchison Essar is planning to phase out its "Orange" brand in this financial year and consolidate all its operations, including that of the acquired BPL Communications and BPL Mobile, under the Hutch umbrella brand.

Sources close to the developments said the consolidation of brands would help provide a "more effective and customer-centric approach" and offer uniform rates and services across all its 13 circles in the country.

At present, the GSM-based mobile service provider operates its Mumbai circle under the Orange brand, which is owned by France Telecom, while the remaining 12 circles are operated under Hutch brand.

The company also pays a royalty to France Telecom for the use of Orange brand. The company has a total of 9.2 million subscribers, of which 500,000 use the Orange brand.

Even though, the company has the right to use the brand name as long as its pays the royalty, Hutch believes that as the "phasing out is inevitable", this is the right time to do so.

When contacted a top company executive said while a change in name was one of the priorities, a deadline for the same was not yet finalised.

"We have the right to use the brand as long as we want and we intend to use it for some more time. The challenge would be to migrate seamlessly to the umbrella brand. We will do it sooner or later, but we cannot comment on how sooner or how later we will implement this," he said.

The Hong Kong-headquartered Hutchison Whampoa had held a majority stake in Mannesmann, a Germany-based service provider that was later acquired by France Telecom. This had resulted in France Telecom becoming the owners of the Orange brand.