France Tel targets 300 mn clients: CEO

PARIS, FRANCE: France Telecom aims to grow its client base worldwide to 300 million by 2015 compared with 200 million today as part of its new five-year strategic plan, CEO Stephane Richard told Le Parisien newspaper.

Richard will present the plan at a press conference on Monday.

On the employment front, Richard said the numbers of workers would be stable this year and that the group would hire roughly 3,500 to compensate for departures.

In recent times the company was in deep troubles due to a spate of workers' suicides.

Also read: France Telecom's 5-year plan in focus after suicides

"From now on we will think more in terms of number of recruitments than of headcount," he said. "In France almost half of workers will leave the group by 2018 as they reach retirement age so we must anticipate this."

Richard also said that he favoured partnerships to acquire content. His predecessor Didier Lombard had preferred direct acquisition of content rights, paying more than 200 million euros a year for rights to games of France's football league, and funding movie production among other moves.

"I prefer putting in place an approach based on partnerships -- either commercial or technological -- eventually complemented by a minority stake," Richard explained.

Asked whether France Telecom would bid for the French football rights again in 2012, he answered: "What is sure is that we will not bid again on our own."