In its six years as a mobile phone network, Orange has acquired over five million customers and expects to double that number within a year. The momentum of its growth rate is staggering: one million customers in July 1997, two million in December 1998, three million in July 1999, four million in December 1999 and a further million in the following two months. At the end of February 2000, some 45 per cent of the UK population owned a mobile phone and one in ten people were Orange customers. Market penetration of Orange mobile phones hit 40 per cent just after Christmas 1999, spurred on by the popularity of Orange Just Talk, which was considered the ideal Christmas gift ( What Mobile magazine, February 2000). Orange UK moved into profit for the first time in May 1999 and, with an annual turnover of 1.2 billion, is a formidable UK network.

Since its inception, Orange, like most other aggressive growth businesses, has focused on acquisitions, pursuing the notion that more customers mean more business. The context within which businesses operate, however, has been changing rapidly and radically, and nowhere more so than in the telecommunications industry. Most significantly, mobile telephony has had an impact on every aspect of life and work, and the internet has opened up previously unimaginable opportunities for communicating and exchanging information and ideas. Lightning speeds of voice and data transfer are possible third generation UTMS ^[2]technology offers data...