France Telecom to Acquire Digital Advertising Network

The Orange France Telecom Group has acquired 100% of UNANIMIS, the UK's largest exclusive digital advertising network.

The combination of UNANIMIS's premium advertising network and Orange's mobile and web assets, provides a reach of over 71.5% of the UK's online population and over 66% of the online population across UK, France, Spain and Poland.

UNANIMIS has exclusive online advertising relationships with key website brands such as the AA, Ticketmaster, ASOS, Gumtree and Shopping.com giving it the most extensive, exclusive-access, digital advertising portfolio in the UK.

France Telecom estimates that the Western European online advertising market was worth an estimated 12 billion euros in 2008 and the UK represented Europe's largest market (31%). Orange and UNANIMIS will also have strong positions in new growth areas such as mobile advertising.

"As 2008 marked the revolution in the mobile Internet space, so 2009 will see the major advances in digital and mobile advertising. The Orange mobile portal, Orange World, and our fixed portal attracts over 12 million monthly users and with the advances in handset technology coupled with new prices plans, this is set to rise even further. More companies are increasingly turning to the mobile Internet to enhance the way they advertise. A key part of our strategy at Orange UK is to grow and evolve our business in order to offer advertisers richer opportunities to engage with people," said Gerry McQuade, Chief Development Officer, Orange UK.
http://www.francetelecom.com