In an interview with the newspaper The echoes, Stéphane Richard, president ofOrange, on the operator's strengths in a changing telecom market and still marked by the price war launched since 2012 with the arrival of free mobile.
Once again, he castigates this race at low cost and says he does not want to fall into this shortcoming by prioritizing quality of service. Stressing that the price war has turned into a "promotions war", it equates the search for low cost at all costs like a "very European contemporary disease and particularly French".
"The consumerist ideology has wreaked havoc and is constantly pushing for the lowest bidder", he says, and"a French obsession for the permanent search for the "cheapest" "which would therefore be endless and ultimately destructive by never being satiated.
And to recall the efforts made: 7 billion euros returned by the telecoms to purchasing power and price reductions of 40% since 2011., without the operators' image being fundamentally changed.
Stéphane Richard also predicts the return of attempts to consolidation between operators from next year and a movement between European operators in the longer term, according to him inevitable given the complexity of the current telecom market.
