Partner Communications Co. Ltd., is an Israeli wireless telecommunications service provider. Headquarters are in Rosh HaAyin. The company has the local license for the Orange and operates exclusively under this international wireless brand name. The prefix (area code) for all 'Orange' customers is 054.
Partner started its operation in Israel in 1999, until 2006 the network had 2.668 million users, 276 thousand of them have 3G phones. The Orange network works with the GSM technology and the UMTS technology for the 3G services, also a HSDPA network is getting built and its currently over 80% of the country. Users of the network can use advanced services all over the world because Orange has contracts with 350 GSM and 27 UMTS international networks. 23% of the network users are business customers, 29% are pre-paid customers and the rest are private customers.
Orange entered the communication market relatively very late because Cellcom and Pelephone were already working in it for years. When it was announced that there will be a new cellular company in israel everyone said that there is no room for an another company, thats why only two companies applied for it: Partner and a group called "Tapuz". After loosing Tapuz became a part of Partner.
In 1999 the first GSM cellular network in Israel started functioning, it allowed Israeli users to use their phones in other places in the world with a similar network. The network was branded under the name "Orange" which was an international brand registered under the names of Hachison and Mifoa from Hong Kong which had a some of partners stocks. The building of the Orange brand is considered one of the best advertising works in Israel.
The international brand "Orange" that the company uses today with a license is registered for the Orange SA company which is owned by France Télécom which is not related to the owners of Partner. However France Télécom decided to let partner keep using the name Orange because of the huge commercial success.
Partner was the first Israeli company to get into Stock Exchange which happened in 1999 right after it was made. During the years the owners of Orange changed dramatically. The Israeli partners Matav, Elbit, Eurocom and polar communications shares dropped and today they hold only a few percents of the company. Other than the public, the biggest stocks share holder(51.6%) is Hachison and Mifoa company. the Egyptian company Orascom bought 20% of Hachison and Mifoa's shares in Partner and has today 9.99% of partner's stocks.
Partner's shares are listed on NASDAQ under the symbol PTNR, on the London Stock Exchange under the symbol PCCD, and on TASE (the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange) under the symbol PTNR. Hutchison Telecom holds a majority stake (50.5%) in the company.
In 15 January, 2007 Partner got a "national inner operator" license which gives her the option to operate a wired telephony. currently this service is available for big companies only. Also the company is preparing nowadays for giving internet ISP services for business customers and later to private ones. this service should be available during the first quarter of 2008.
