Orange predicts a bumper week for cinema goers

With some of the year’s most eagerly anticipated films out this week, Orange predicts a bumper few weeks of cinema-going after witnessing a 30% increase in demand for its long-standing Orange Wednesdays offer. 

With “Star Trek” and “X-Men Origins; Wolverine” out already and the Da Vinci Code follow-up “Angels and Demons” out on Thursday, Orange customers are set for fantastic savings over the coming weeks.

This month, Orange celebrated five years of Orange Wednesdays – one of the most longstanding and enjoyable credit crunch deals. The 2 for 1 cinema offer has been enjoyed 14 million times by savvy Orange customers, saving them more than £30m* in the last five years.

As well as saving customers precious pennies, Orange Wednesdays has resulted in up to 3 million additional annual visits to UK cinemas, adding investment and growth to the industry. Wednesday is now the most popular day of the week to go to the cinema outside of the weekend - when it used to be the slowest.

Orange Wednesdays – fast facts

• Orange customers have benefited from the Orange Wednesday deal 14 million times
• Orange Wednesdays has saved Orange customers over £30 million over the past 5 years
• Orange Wednesdays has resulted in up to 3 million additional annual visits to UK cinemas , making Wednesday the most popular day of the week to go to the cinema outside of the weekend
• The most popular movie to date for Orange Wednesdays was the Abba hit Mama Mia. 276,549 customers saved money for popcorn with the 2 for 1 deal
• The top 5 Orange Wednesdays customers have redeemed 2 for 1 tickets an average of 70 times each
• Roughly 85,000 customers have benefited from the Orange Wednesday Pizza Express Partnership which launched in February equivalent to 170,000 pizzas and approximately 1.36 million doughballs   

Getting hold of your 2-for-1 tickets is easy if you are an Orange mobile or broadband customer:

Mobile:

• Text 'FILM' to 241 and we'll send you your ticket, pronto. Tickets cost 35p.
• Call 241 from your Orange mobile.
• Surf to Orange World, select 'Film', then 'Orange Wednesdays'

Broadband:

• Text 'JOIN' and your unique user name (the bit after the @), to 80241 to register. So for example, JOIN name.orangehome.co.uk

Ends

Notes to editor:

*Based on 14 million experiences and the average cost of a ticket price over 5 years. This takes into consideration the cost of a 35p text message and the fact that you have to pay for half a cinema ticket.

About Orange

Orange is the key brand of the France Telecom Group, one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators. With 123 million customers, the Orange brand now covers Internet, television and mobile services in the majority of countries where the Group operates.

At the end of 2008, France Telecom had consolidated sales of 53.5 billion euros (12.7 billion euros for the first quarter of 2009) and at 29 April 2009, the Group had a customer base of almost 184 million customers in 30 countries. These include 123 million mobile customers worldwide and 13 million broadband Internet (ADSL) customers in Europe. Orange is the number three mobile operator and the number one provider of broadband Internet services in Europe and, under the brand Orange Business Services, is one of the world leaders in providing telecommunication services to multinational companies.

In the UK, Orange provides high quality GSM coverage to 99% of the UK population. At the end of March 2009, Orange had almost 17 million customers in the UK – 15.8 million active mobile customers and close to one million fixed broadband customers.

Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trade marks of Orange Personal Communications Services Limited.

For more information: www.orange.com, www.francetelecom.com, www.orange-business.com

For further information, call the Orange press office on 0870 373 1500 or email: Orangepr@golinharris.com.