Telecommunications firm France-Telecom Orange has unveiled a subsidiary that plans to seek out business opportunities in countries where the telco does not operate. And South Africa is first on the unit’s list.

The subsidiary, called Orange Horizons, plans to provide an additional source of revenue for the France-Telecom Orange group. Subsequently, the unit is tasked with rolling out projects including the launch of online stores selling telecoms-related equipment or airtime, the introduction of flexible travel solutions; or even the setup of virtual mobile operator (MVNO) activity.

The first of these projects has already been launched in South Africa under the Orange Horizons banner, according to the company.

Orange’s South African activity is to comprise of an e-commerce website, http://store.orange.com/za that plans to sell telecoms-related devices and accessories. Also, the firm has unveiled a country website,www.orange.com/za, which provides online content specifically tailored for a South African audience including news feeds, sports news and audiovisual content.

The company, though, has not yet disclosed as to whether it could unveil MVNO operations in the country.

Orange has over 70 million subscribers in the Middle East and Africa and the mobile operator is the third largest after MTN (with 160 million subscribers) and Vodafone (with 90 million subscribers).

Apart from South Africa, Orange says it plans to launch business ventures in several other countries in 2013 in Europe and Africa, and “will also look at opportunities in South America in order to leverage existing content-related assets such as starMedia (a South American internet portal) for example.”

Other business projects potentially on the cards for Orange include the launch of over-the-top country websites that aim to leverage existing assets such as the Group’s two pan-continental web-portals StarAfrica (Africa) and starMedia (South America), or content-providers such as Deezer and DailyMotion.

Orange says it is present in 32 countries globally with a total customer base of 227 million customers as at 30 September 2012, including 169 million mobile customers and 15 million broadband internet (ADSL, fibre) customers worldwide.