Numericable was a major French
cable operator and telecommunications services company. Numericable was originally created in 2007 from the merger between former competitors Noos and NC Numericable networks. Numericable Group SA was founded in August 2013 to act as the parent company of Numericable group companies and to offer its shares on the stock exchange. The company provides
cable broadband
In telecommunications, cable Internet access, shortened to cable Internet, is a form of broadband Internet access which uses the same infrastructure as a cable television. Like digital subscriber line and fiber to the premises services, cable In ...
services in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
,
Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
and
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
, offering
digital and
analog
Analog or analogue may refer to:
Computing and electronics
* Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable
** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals
*** Analog electronics, circuits which use analog ...
television,
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
, and phone services to homes. From 2008, Numericable also offered mobile telephone services to its customers.
It was the leading
cable television
Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broa ...
provider and
internet access
Internet access is the ability of individuals and organizations to connect to the Internet using computer terminals, computers, and other devices; and to access services such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is sold by Internet ...
provider in
metropolitan France
Metropolitan France (french: France métropolitaine or ''la Métropole''), also known as European France (french: Territoire européen de la France) is the area of France which is geographically in Europe. This collective name for the European ...
. From 2012, Numericable held the largest high-speed
broadband network
The ideal telecommunication network has the following characteristics: broadband, ''multi-media'', ''multi-point'', ''multi-rate'' and economical implementation for a diversity of services (multi-services). The Broadband Integrated Services Digital ...
in France, including a small portion using
optical fiber
An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to ...
or FTTX.
On September 19, 2013, following failed talks with the French telecommunications company
SFR
SFR (; ''Société française du radiotéléphone'', ) is a French telecommunications company.
As of December 2015, it had 21.9 million customers in Metropolitan France for mobile services, and provided 6.35 million households with high-spee ...
, the company announced it had taken the first steps towards an
initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
on the NYSE Euronext market in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
.
On March 5, 2014, Numericable, backed by its lead shareholder Altice, made an offer to buy
Vivendi
Vivendi SE is a French mass media holding company headquartered in Paris. Widely known as the owner of Gameloft, Groupe Canal+, Havas, Editis, Prisma Media, Vivendi Village and Dailymotion, the company has activities in television, film, video ...
's SFR telecommunications affiliate, France's second largest. The bid is said to include about 11 billion euros ($15.2 billion) in cash, 3 billion euros in Numericable’s cable assets and a 750 million-euro capital increase by Altice. Numericable merged with SFR in November 2014 to form
Numericable-SFR
SFR (; ''Société française du radiotéléphone'', ) is a French telecommunications company.
As of December 2015, it had 21.9 million customers in Metropolitan France for mobile services, and provided 6.35 million households with high-spee ...
. In April 2016, the merged company adopted the SFR name across all its businesses.
The brand Numericable remained used to designate the SFR cable and fiber TV offers (which had more channels than SFR ADSL) until 2019.
History
Origin of the network
From the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
until May 1981, when the
French Socialist Party came swept to power with the election of
François Mitterrand
François Marie Adrien Maurice Mitterrand (26 October 19168 January 1996) was President of France, serving under that position from 1981 to 1995, the longest time in office in the history of France. As First Secretary of the Socialist Party, he ...
, the state held a monopoly on the production and distribution of audiovisual programmes on French territory. On July 29, 1982, Law 82-652 abolished the state monopoly and created both a Council and High Authority on Audiovisual Communication to oversee the liberalisation of the French audiovisual sector.
In 1982, the National Cable Plan was approved, with the ambitious goal of connecting one million households within five years and using the most advanced techniques of the time, including
fiber-optic technology. In order to finance the project, a
public-private partnership was put in place that allowed private operators to utilise the networks set up by
France Telecom
Orange S.A. (), formerly France Télécom S.A. (stylized as france telecom) is a French multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide and employs 89,000 people in France, and 59,000 elsewhere. In 2015, ...
to commercial ends.
Regulations provided for highly favourable concessions that were awarded to private operators (up to 99 years). Water and Sewage Treatment service providers often diversified into the cable market and used their close ties with local municipalities to win concessions.
On June 6, 1985, the group Lyonnaise des eaux created the company Paris Câble, which would later become Lyonnaise Câble, Noos, and Numericable. Officially launched on November 25, 1986, the launch of the National Cable Plan marked the start of the commercial use of cable networks in Paris. In 1996, 16 regional operators merged into a national player, Lyonnaise Communications.
From Lyonnaise Câble to Noos
In May 2000, Noos became the brand name of Lyonnaise Communications in a move that was accompanied by the harmonization of Lyonnaise’s cable networks. Following its national expansion strategy, Noos took over the cable television assets of French group NTL in November 2001.
At this point, three cable operators were still in business: France Telecom, NC Numericable and Noos.
New fiber optic network and diversification
NC Numericable and Noos merged in 2006. One year later, the brand Noos disappeared and was replaced by the name Numericable. A new logo and marketing campaign was subsequently launched in August 2007. For the first time, all of French cable networks were technically owned by one company.
In 2005, Numéricâble launched its activities in the Antilles. In 2008, Le Câble Numericable bought WSG and MTVC, the major cable operators in Guadeloupe and Martinique.
Mobile virtual network operator
In 2007, Numericable announced that it had signed a deal with
Bouygues Telecom
Bouygues Telecom () is a French mobile phone, Internet service provider and IPTV company, part of the Bouygues group. It is the third oldest mobile network operator in France, after Orange and SFR, and before Free Mobile. Its headquarters, de ...
to use its mobile network, thereby opening the way to offering mobile services to its customers. The company subsequently launched the service in 2008.
Numericable was launched as a
mobile virtual network operator
A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a wireless communications services provider that does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which it provides services to its customers. An MVNO enters into a business agreement with a mobil ...
on May 16, 2011, advertising an ‘unlimited’ offer and highlighting its competitiveness. To accompany its business development, Numericable launched a ‘triple play’ internet offer, costing four euros per month, on September 13, 2011.
In order to compete with new offers launched by rival company Free, Numericable launched an ‘unlimited’ mobile phone plan costing €19.99 per month on January 23, 2012, contributing to the company’s general move to lower prices.
Launching fiber optic technology in France
To compete with competitors’ Internet terminals, Numericable announced the launch of ‘Box by Numericable’, a product that is both modem and receiver. According to the operator, the box allows access to 300 thematic channels, to the Internet and to make an unlimited number of calls to landlines and mobile numbers in France, as well as to several international locations. For the eligible clients, the Box allows a high-speed internet connection (up to 200 megabytes/second) as long as it is linked to a local network. The Box also gives its clients access to videos on-demand (VOD) and multiple social network applications, such as
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
.
SFR Public Offering
While the name of the group was Numericable, the management remained legally administered by two separate companies: Numericable SAS and NC Numericable (formerly known as Noos). Ypso Holding S.à r.l. was a
holding company
A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...
controlling Numericable companies, owned by the American
Carlyle Group
The Carlyle Group is a multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in the United States with $376 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, real assets, and pri ...
(35%), the British
private-equity firm
A private equity firm is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of startup or operating companies through a variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including leve ...
Cinven
Cinven is a global private equity firm founded in 1977, with offices in nine international locations in Guernsey, London, New York, Paris, Frankfurt, Milan, Luxembourg, Madrid, and Hong Kong that acquires Europe and United States based corporat ...
(35%) and
Altice, a Luxembourg-based cable operator (30%). On 2 August 2013, Numericable Group SA was formed as the parent company of Numericable group companies.
On September 19, 2013, Numericable Group announced the launch of a legal and financial process aimed at the company’s
initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
on the
Paris stock exchange
Euronext Paris is France's securities market, formerly known as the Paris Bourse, which merged with the Amsterdam, Lisbon, and Brussels exchanges in September 2000 to form Euronext NV. As of 2022, the 795 companies listed had a combined market ...
, regulated by NYSE Euronext. The declared objective was to obtain new financial resources to invest in French fiber-optic development. The shares were offered on 7 November 2013.
Recent news
In November 2014, France’s competition watchdog approved a deal for Numericable to acquire
Virgin Mobile France
Virgin Mobile France was a cellular telephone operator in France. It launched in 2006 as a joint venture between Virgin Group and Carphone Warehouse. The company operated as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), whereby it did not own or ope ...
for €325 million.
SFR
SFR (; ''Société française du radiotéléphone'', ) is a French telecommunications company.
As of December 2015, it had 21.9 million customers in Metropolitan France for mobile services, and provided 6.35 million households with high-spee ...
launched its fiber packages in November 2014, using the Numericable network and TV bouquets. In France, the cable networks had an exemption from exclusivity of TV channels. Following the launch of the SFR by Numericable offers,
Canalsat
Canal+ is a French subscription provider associated to the channel of the same name. It is owned by Vivendi (owner of Canal+) with a hundred percent share.
History
In 1992, Canalsatellite was launched, the shareholders were Canal+ Group (66 p ...
has withdrawn the Numericable exemption, which has made it lose certain channels such as
Eurosport
Eurosport is a group of pay television networks in Europe and parts of Asia. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery through Warner Bros. Discovery Sports#Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe properties, its international sports unit, it operates two ...
, Disney XD,
Disney Junior
Disney Junior is an American pay television network owned by the Walt Disney Television (part of Disney General Entertainment Content) unit of The Walt Disney Company through Disney Branded Television. Aimed mainly at children two to seven y ...
,
Disney Cinema,
Comédie+
Comédie+ (formerly Comédie!) is a French cable network showing humorous programs since 1997. It bears some resemblance to Comedy Central; even the ''comédie'' word in the name is used in the very broad American meaning. It is directed by Domi ...
,
Planète+
Planète+ (formerly Planète Câble) is a French television network that primarily broadcasts documentaries. It is owned by the Canal+ Group. It is available on digital terrestrial television
Digital terrestrial television (DTTV or DTT, or ...
,
Télétoon+
Télétoon+ (formerly Télétoon, stylized téléTOON+) is a French pay television channel operated by Canal+, focusing its programming on animation (and live-action in evening since the Canal+ acquisition) for children ages 7 to 14. It was lau ...
and
Piwi+
Piwi+ (formerly Piwi) is a French pay television channel for children aged 3 to 6, owned by the Canal+ Group. History
Piwi was first launched on October 20, 2002 as a preschool block on Télétoon for Les Minitoons, and then on December 3, 2003 ...
.
Altice launched its SVOD service, Zive, on 17 November 2015. It was renamed SFR Play in late 2016.
Altice acquired the rights of many sports competitions (
Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...
,
Liga NOS,
Champions League) to form its SFR Sport bouquet. Altice signed an exclusive agreement with Discovery and
NBCUniversal
NBCUniversal Media, LLC is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate corporation owned by Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States.
NBCUniversal is primari ...
in December 2016. The premium movies and series TV channel
Altice Studio
Altice Studio is a French Premium pay television channel dedicated to movies and series operated by Altice France.
The channel launched on 22 August 2017 as part of the company new strategy to provide to their subscribers their own television cha ...
was launched on 22 August 2017.
Numericable was rebranded as SFR in Belgium and Luxembourg on 15 February 2016, with its launch of Zive.
In December 2016,
Altice announced to sell SFR Belux to
Telenet
Telenet was an American commercial packet-switched network which went into service in 1975. It was the first FCC-licensed public data network in the United States. Various commercial and government interests paid monthly fees for dedicated lines ...
for €400 million.
The Numericable and SFR channels numbering were merged on 22 August 2017, and in 2019, the Numericable exclusive channels (
MTV
MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...
,
Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Param ...
, Série Club,
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, Car ...
...) were added to SFR ADSL offer. The brand Numericable disappeared.
Services
The company provided the following services:
*Internet or TV access;
*Internet and telephone access;
*Internet, telephone and TV access;
*All the above services including a mobile phone contract.
National Network
Numericable controls the vast majority of the cable network in France, representing some 9.5 million potential households or about 32% of French households. The company has 3.5 million television subscribers, 1,037,000 for internet and 753,000 for telephone services.
As of June 2012, the cable operator counts over a half million high-speed fiber-optic customers and 4.6 million households connected to the network. Later that year in November 2012, a company press release announced that the number had grown to almost 600,000. According to figures published by Arcep, Numericable holds 70% of the high-speed fiber-optic market.
International Network
Numericable also had operations in
Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
,
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
, French Caribbean (Martinique, Guadeloupe and French Guiana) and
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
.
In 2016, Numericable was replaced by
SFR
SFR (; ''Société française du radiotéléphone'', ) is a French telecommunications company.
As of December 2015, it had 21.9 million customers in Metropolitan France for mobile services, and provided 6.35 million households with high-spee ...
in Belgium, Luxembourg and Overseas France.
In Portugal, Altice sold Cabovisão, due to
Meo acquisition, to Apax France and it was rebranded as
Nowo
NOWO (“novo”) is a Portuguese telecommunications company. It is one of the four Triple play (telecommunications), triple play operators in Portugal.
Apax Partners, Apax France and Fortino Capital have been NOWO's shareholders since Septemb ...
on 19 September 2016.
List of Numericable CEOs
*Philippe Besnier (March 2005 – August 2008)
*Pierre Danon (September 2008 – December 2010)
*Eric Denoyer (December 2010 – present)
Ownership
After its listing on the Paris NYSE Euronext stock exchange, Numericable main shareholders are the Luxembourg investment fund Altice (30%), which is listed under the ticker ATC on the Amsterdam NYSE Euronext stock exchange since January 2014 and is controlled and led by the French-Israeli investor and telecommunications executive
Patrick Drahi
Patrick Drahi ( he, פטריק דרהי; born 20 August 1963) is a French–Israeli billionaire, businessman telecoms, media tycoon, and investor, magnate. He has been living in Switzerland since 1999.. He is the founder and controlling shareh ...
, the American private-equity group
Carlyle Group
The Carlyle Group is a multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in the United States with $376 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, real assets, and pri ...
(26.3%), and the British
private-equity firm
A private equity firm is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of startup or operating companies through a variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including leve ...
Cinven
Cinven is a global private equity firm founded in 1977, with offices in nine international locations in Guernsey, London, New York, Paris, Frankfurt, Milan, Luxembourg, Madrid, and Hong Kong that acquires Europe and United States based corporat ...
(18.2%).
2011 Publicity Campaign
In October 2011, Numericable launched a €10 million nationwide
advertising campaign
An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). An IMC is a platform in which a group of people can group their ideas, beliefs, and conc ...
with the advertising firm
Fred & Farid that featured three fictional creatures that represent the three principal services of the company: television, internet and wireless communications. These mascots were named the ''Numiz'' (''Cabiz'' in Portugal).
References
External links
*
Official website FranceOfficial website BelgiumOfficial website Luxemburg
{{Carlyle Group
Cable television companies
Telecommunications companies of France
Telecommunications companies of Belgium
Telecommunications companies of Luxembourg
High-definition television
Altice (company)