Orange, the mobile phone operator which has offered deals on cinema tickets for the past eight years, has secured a partnership with Apple to offer customers the chance to rent movies online for free.

Tom Alexander, the head of the largest mobile phone group in the UK, shocked the market yesterday as he resigned without warning to spend more time with his family.

Everything Everywhere, the parent company of Orange and T-Mobile, is set to expand its presence on the UK high street with plans to launch 30 new stores this year.

A smartphone that requires the owner's fingerprint to be scanned before it will allow anyone to access the web, play games or even make a call is launched today.

Some 300 people gathered in Bordeaux yesterday to mark the suicide of a 57-year-old employee of France Telecom-Orange. The man, named only as Rémi L, set himself on fire early on Tuesday morning in the car park of the company's Bordeaux office, becoming the latest company employee to kill himself.

Orange is set to become the first operator in the UK to allow customers to pay for goods with a swipe of their mobile phone, after signing a strategic deal with Barclays.

AstraZeneca took a tumble yesterday after analysts forecast black clouds ahead for Britain's second-largest drug maker after it posted disappointing third-quarter numbers.

Everything Everywhere (EE) is to axe 1,200 jobs, in the first major restructuring since the venture was created through the merger of Orange and T-Mobile's UK units. The company is to cut 7.5 per cent of its 16,000-strong workforce to remove duplication following the deal, completed in July.

The group behind newly merged mobile phone giants Orange and T-Mobile today announced plans to axe around 1,200 jobs in the UK.

The mobile operator Orange is in talks to join Project Canvas, the joint venture set up to bring online catch-up television to the living room when it launches next year.

The Netherlands woke up to a full-blown case of Orange fever this morning after the national side beat Uruguay 3-2 to reach their first World Cup final in 32 years.

The journalists of Le Monde, the most prestigious French-language publication in the world, have contemptuously defeated an attempt by President Nicolas Sarkozy to intervene in the sale of their struggling newspaper.