French telecommunications firm Orange has confirmed the launch of its brand in Egypt, officially replacing the Mobinil brand.

According to Orange, Egypt represents the Group's largest operation in terms of customer numbers (33.4 million customers at the end of December 2015) and contributes over 27% of its revenues for the Middle East and Africa region.

Stéphane Richard, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for Orange, commented: "Egypt is a vibrant market and we are delighted to bring the Orange brand to this important market on this momentous day in our history. Today Orange is a mobile operator in Egypt, but we want to be much more than that in the future. We want to be a true digital player and help the Egyptian economy and its people to draw the benefits of the digital age."

Yves Gauthier, Chief Executive Officer, Orange Egypt, said: "We are part of a truly international group with all the backing that brings. In addition to benefiting from group-wide synergies and know-how, we are adopting the Orange strategy to place the customer experience at the heart of what we do so that we can deliver on our promise 'to connect our customers to what is essential in their lives'. Today is a proud day for our employees who have worked hard to get to this moment and we hope our customers share our pride."

In a statement the telco vowed to leverage its technical, marketing and business expertise to enhance service delivery to customers.

This will involve the first 'smart store' in Cairo, the introduction of services including secure authentication solution and Mobile Connect, and Orange devices.

Orange has operations in 27 countries worldwide, and is present in 19 countries across Africa and the Middle East.

Most recently the company announced a deal with Millicom to acquire Tigo DRC. In a statement at the time Orange explained that the mobile market in the DRC continues to experience growth and is currently the largest mobile market in Central and West Africa after Nigeria.

The move was described as pivotal to Orange's Africa strategy at the heart of which is to establish and maintain competitive positions across its portfolio of countries in which it operates.