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| Company type | Société anonyme |
|---|---|
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | 18 November 1987; 38 years ago (1987-11-18) |
| Headquarters | Altice Campus, Paris ,France |
Area served | France, Réunion,Mayotte, Guadeloupe,Martinique |
Key people | Matthieu Cocq (CEO)[1] |
| Products | Box de SFR, Home by SFR, mobile phones |
| Services | Fixed-line internet, mobile internet,fixed-line andmobile telephony,IP television |
| Revenue | €10.797 billion (2019)[2] |
| €4.055 billion (2019)[2] | |
| €2.898 billion (2019)[2] | |
| Owner |
BlackRock,Fidelity Investments,PIMCO : 45 % |
Number of employees | 6,000 (2020) |
| Subsidiaries | RED by SFR, SFR Business |
| Website | sfr sfr sfrcaraibe |
SFR S.A. (orAltice France S.A. for the group) (French:[ɛsɛfɛʁ]; in full:Société française du radiotéléphone[sɔsjetefʁɑ̃sɛːzdyʁadjotelefɔn]) is a Frenchtelecommunications company. It is both the second-oldestmobile network operator and the second largesttelecommunications company inFrance, afterOrange.
The group, Altice France S.A. (formerly Numericable Group, then SFR Group), has been 55% owned since 2025 by Franco-Israeli businessmanPatrick Drahi viaAltice Group Lux, and 45% by various creditors such asBlackRock,Fidelity andPIMCO.
As of December 2015, SFR had 21.9 million customers inMetropolitan France for mobile services and it provided 6.35 million households with high-speed internet access.[3]
SFR also offers services in the overseas departments ofFrance, in theCaribbean islands ofMartinique,Guadeloupe, and inGuyane throughSFR Caraïbe, and in theIndian Ocean, inMayotte and theRéunion islands throughSRR (Société Réunionnaise du Radiotéléphone; also branded asSFR Réunion).SFR Belux operated inBelgium as a cable operator and MVNO in some communes ofBrussels Region, and in some areas ofLuxembourg (asSFR Luxembourg). The division was sold to rivalTelenet (owned byLiberty Global) in December 2016.
Although Vodafone sold its 44% stake in the operator in April 2011, SFR has remainedVodafone's local partner ever since.[4]
SFR was founded in 1987 in order for its then-parent companyCompagnie Générale des Eaux (CGE) to start offering a1G mobile phone service using the modified Nordic telecommunications standardNMT-F, to be operated in competition with the then-telephony incumbentFrance Télécom'sRadiocom 2000 network. SFR also became the second French mobile network operator (afterFrance Télécom) to launch2GGSM services, which it did on 15 November 1992.
In 1996, CGE spun off SFR and all its other telecommunications activities into a new holding company called SFR-Cegetel (later justCegetel [fr]), which also became a competing provider of fixed-line telecommunication services, as well as a majorISP and a shareholder of the French operations ofAmerica Online (AOL), as part of AOL's European operations which AOL of the United States ran as a joint venture with the German conglomerateBertelsmann.
Vodafone had a 44% share in SFR until April 2011, when it sold its entire share back to SFR's founding parent companyVivendi. SFR is a major partner network of Vodafone in France.[5][6]
Vivendi announced in March 2014 that it planned to sell its SFR division.[7] On 14 March, it announced that it would enter exclusive negotiations withAltice/Numericable, to the exclusion ofBouygues andIliad.[7]Arnaud Montebourg, the French Minister for Industrial Renewal, triggered considerable concern when he stated that the Numericable/SFR deal was a certainty.Iliad lost 7.5% of its market value on that day.[7]
SFR having 28.6 million subscribers versus 1.7 million forNumericable and much more notoriety,Patrick Drahi announced that SFR will replaceNumericable. In late 2015, Numericable Outremer became SFR Caraïbe. On 15 February 2016, Numericable was rebranded as SFR in Belgium and Luxembourg, with the launch of new packages and the SVOD service Zive.
In February 2016,Orange, SFR andFree announced the purchase of their competitorBouygues Telecom. However, negotiations for the purchase agreement fell through a few months later.[8]
In April 2016, the Numericable-SFR Group, now chaired by formerAlcatel-Lucent CEOMichel Combes, announced it was renaming itself "SFR Group" and a new organization with three divisions:
SFR acquires 49% ofNextRadioTV (theBFM andRMC channels) and the activities ofAltice Media Group France (the French press titlesLibération andL'Express) fromAltice, its main shareholder, for around 600 million euros.[9]
On May 25, 2016, SFR announced that it had finalized the acquisition ofAltice Media Group France, and on May 12, 2016, SFR's takeover of Altice's stake inNextRadioTV was finalized.[10]
In December 2016,Altice sold SFR Belux toTelenet.[11] SFR was merged inBelgium withTelenet on 31 March 2019, and SFR Luxembourg merged with Eltrona on 1 April 2020.
In January 2017, SFR announced its intention to acquire 100% of the News Participations andNextRadioTV, a process finalized in April 2018.
On May 23, 2017,Altice, parent company of SFR, announced its intention to rebrand all of the group's telecom subsidiaries as "Altice". The aim for Altice is to replace the group's historic local brands such asPortugal Telecom, as well asOptimum, andSuddenlink in the US[12] under a single international brand and to re-invoice local subsidiaries (including SFR) for its use. As far as SFR is concerned, the actual changeover was initially scheduled for June 2018,[13] but did not take place.[14]
On November 9, 2017,Patrick Drahi set up a new governance withAlain Weill as CEO. Its aim is to "determine the group's strategic, operational, commercial and technological direction, and its execution", following the difficulties encountered by the group.[15]
In January 2018, with the announcement of the spin-off of its shareholder,Altice was renamed Altice Europe and was then made up of SFR Group, Altice International and Altice Pay TV, which holds the broadcasting rights acquired by SFR. On February 9, 2018, SFR Group is renamed "Altice France".[16]
On April 20, 2018, the French regulatory body CSA authorized the takeover ofNextRadioTV by Altice France, with Altice France becoming the #1 player in telecom-media convergence in France. On May 24, 2018, we learn that the entire NextRadioTV group is moving to join SFR in a gigantic complex in Paris in the fall.
On November 30, 2018,Altice Europe announced that Altice France had reached an exclusive agreement to sell 49.99% of the capital of SFR FTTH, the structure housing SFR's fiber network assets outside major cities, to an investor group comprisingAllianz Capital Partners,Axa Investment Managers Real Assets andOMERS Infrastructure for 1.8 billion euros. This values SFR FTTH at 3.6 billion euros, while retaining 100% ownership of its cable network (nine million outlets) and its 2.5 million fiber outlets in high-density areas. This agreement is in line with Altice Europe's debt reduction strategy and will enable it to make savings, since SFR FTTH will only include one million fiber outlets at the end of 2018, and will have to build as many each year to reach five million outlets by the end of 2022.[17]
In May 2020, the unions were warned of a forthcoming savings plan in the media branch.[18] The free sports news channel RMC Sport News will cease broadcasting on June 2, 2020.[19]
In 2020, with the approval of theEuropean Commission, SFR FTTH acquired Covage to becomeOrange's main infrastructure competitor in France.
In February 2021, Altice France announced the sale of its majority stake in Hivory, which manages 10,500 telecom towers, to the Spanish groupCellnex, for an enterprise value of 5.2 billion euros.[20][21] In March 2021, SFR FTTH changes its name to XP Fibre.[22][23]
In March 2021, Altice France announced the reduction of 1,700 jobs, including 400 in SFR stores, partly as a result of the drop in footfall linked to Covid-19, with the remainder of job cuts affecting a wide range of activities (Consumer, Network, B2B, Human Resources).[24]
In June 2021, Altice France acquires the French virtual operator Prixtel, for an undisclosed sum. In September 2021, Altice France announces the acquisition of French virtual operator Coriolis Télécom for 415 million euros.[25] In May 2022, Altice France also announces the purchase of SYMA. Mesrop Yeremian, founder of SYMA, takes over as head of Altice France's Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) division.[26]
At the end of 2022, the telecom operator commissioned the U.S.-based investment bankPerella Weinberg Partners to sell 92 data centers, a sale expected to be worth around one billion euros.[27] On November 21, 2023, Altice France sold 70% ofUltraEdge, a division of SFR Business comprising its 257 data centers, toMorgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners for 530 million euros.[28]
On September 3, 2024, SFR suffered a data leak that included theIBAN. The number of customers affected is unknown.[29]
In February 2025, the main shareholder of Altice France and theAltice Group,Patrick Drahi, negotiated a reduction in Altice France's debt from 24 billion to 15.5 billion euros in exchange for the sale of a 45% stake to Altice France's creditors.[30][31]
The financial model developed for the SFR acquisition (purchase on credit) has been repeated for each external growth operation. Over the years, Patrick Drahi accumulated debt, but the scaffolding worked because interest rates were low, the profitability of the acquired companies was higher than the cost of the debt, and the financial community trusted Patrick Drahi to refinance his debt.[32] But in 2022, the structure will come crashing down: the central banks' decision to raise interest rates. Average rates in theAltice Group will then be 10%. At the same time, subscriber attrition is driving down the profitability of the group's companies.[32] The group then found itself with significant debt maturities to repay in the 2020s and a prohibitive debt refinancing rate: theMoody's rating agency classified Altice's group debt as "Caa2" in March 2024, i.e. ultra-speculative. To save his group, Patrick Drahi is implementing a new strategy: sell off assets (around 10 billion euros) and negotiate with creditors to waive part of the debt (around 20%), in order to bring the debt-to-EBITDA ratio down to around four (compared with six in 2024, before the new strategy was applied).[32]
In June 2025, Altice France filed forChapter 15 bankruptcy protection, weeks after it also entered safeguard proceedings in France.[33]
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SFR TV is a television service accessible onLa Box de SFR andLa Box Fibre de SFR, which delivers television programs via the broadband internet telephone network (xDSL), high-speed internet (FTTH orFTTB fiber withinNumericable). The service was also broadcast by satellite withSFR Sat available on theAstra 19.2°E satellite until October 2015.
The SFR TV package includes more than 200 channels, somepay-tv channels can be added as an option, by subscribing to a specific paid package, classified by theme (sport, youth, music, international ...).
On 17 November 2015, Numericable-SFR launched its SVOD service Zive, for the Power bouquet subscribers. Zive and Power packages became SFR Play in 2016.
Altice signed an exclusive agreement withDiscovery andNBCUniversal in December 2016. The premium movies and series TV channelAltice Studio was launched on 22 August 2017.
The Numericable and SFR channels numbering were merged on 22 August 2017, and in 2019, the Numericable exclusive channels (MTV,Nickelodeon,J-One, Série Club,Cartoon Network...) were added to SFR ADSL offer. The brand Numericable disappeared.
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RMC Sport (formerly SFR Sport) is a package of French TV channels (RMC Sport 1, RMC Sport 2, RMC Sport 3, RMC Sport 4, RMC Sport 1UHD) from the SFR Group devoted to sports. They are available for SFR,Canal+,My.T andOTT subscribers.
In 2016, Altice acquired the rights of many sports competitions (Premier League,Liga NOS,Champions League) to form its SFR Sport bouquet. MCS, MCS Extrême and Kombat Sport were rebranded as SFR Sport 2, SFR Sport 3 and SFR Sport 5; and SFR Sport 1 and 4K were launched. The SFR Sport bouquet became RMC Sport on 3 July 2018.
RED by SFR [fr] was launched on 11 October 2011 as SFR's online-only, lower costflanker brand, in preparation for the launch ofFree Mobile the following year.
Media related toSFR (Société Française du Radiotéléphone) at Wikimedia Commons| International | |
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