SFR S.A. (or Altice France S.A. for the group) (; ) is a French

telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

company. It is both the second-oldest

mobile network operator A mobile network operator (MNO), also known as a mobile network provider, mobile network carrier, mobile , wireless service provider, wireless carrier, wireless operator, wireless telco, or cellular company, is a telecommunications provider of se ...

and the second largest

company in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, after Orange. The group, Altice France S.A. (formerly Numericable Group, then SFR Group), has been 55% owned since 2025 by Franco-Israeli businessman Patrick Drahi via Altice Group Lux, and 45% by various creditors such as

BlackRock BlackRock, Inc. is an American Multinational corporation, multinational investment company. Founded in 1988, initially as an enterprise risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager ...

Fidelity Fidelity is the quality of faithfulness or loyalty. Its original meaning regarded duty in a broader sense than the related concept of '' fealty''. Both derive from the Latin word , meaning "faithful or loyal". In the City of London financial m ...

and

PIMCO Pacific Investment Management Company LLC (PIMCO) is an American investment management firm. While it has a specific focus on active fixed income management worldwide, it manages investments in many asset classes, including fixed income, share ca ...

. As of December 2015, SFR had 21.9 million customers in

Metropolitan France Metropolitan France ( or ), also known as European France (), is the area of France which is geographically in Europe and chiefly comprises #Hexagon, the mainland, popularly known as "the Hexagon" ( or ), and Corsica. This collective name for the ...

for mobile services and it provided 6.35 million households with high-speed internet access. SFR also offers services in the overseas departments of

, in the

Caribbean islands Most of the Caribbean countries are islands in the Caribbean Sea, with only a few in inland lakes. The largest islands include Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica and Puerto Rico. Some of the smaller islands are referred to as a ''rock'' or ''reef.'' ''I ...

Martinique Martinique ( ; or ; Kalinago language, Kalinago: or ) is an island in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the eastern Caribbean Sea. It was previously known as Iguanacaera which translates to iguana island in Carib language, Kariʼn ...

Guadeloupe Guadeloupe is an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands—Basse-Terre Island, Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Guadeloupe, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galant ...

, and in Guyane through SFR Caraïbe, and in the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

, in

Mayotte Mayotte ( ; , ; , ; , ), officially the Department of Mayotte (), is an Overseas France, overseas Overseas departments and regions of France, department and region and single territorial collectivity of France. It is one of the Overseas departm ...

and the

Réunion Réunion (; ; ; known as before 1848) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France. Part of the Mascarene Islands, it is located approximately east of the isl ...

islands through SRR (Société Réunionnaise du Radiotéléphone; also branded as SFR Réunion). SFR Belux operated in

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

as a cable operator and MVNO in some communes of Brussels Region, and in some areas of

Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...

(as SFR Luxembourg). The division was sold to rival

Telenet Telenet was an American commercial packet-switched network which went into service in 1975. It was the first FCC-licensed public data network in the United States. Various commercial and government interests paid monthly fees for dedicated lin ...

(owned by

Liberty Global Liberty Global Ltd. is a British-Dutch-American multinational telecommunications company domiciled in Bermuda, with headquarters in London, Amsterdam and Denver. Its respective legal names are Liberty Global Holdings Limited (UK), Liberty Glo ...

) in December 2016.

History

Origins

SFR was founded in 1987 in order for its then-parent company '' Compagnie Générale des Eaux'' (CGE) to start offering a 1G mobile phone service using the modified Nordic telecommunications standard NMT-F, to be operated in competition with the then-telephony incumbent France Télécom's Radiocom 2000 network. SFR also became the second French mobile network operator (after France Télécom) to launch 2G

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a family of standards to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks, as used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and Mobile broadband modem, mobile broadba ...

services, which it did on 15 November 1992.

SFR-Cegetel (1996–2005), then SFR (2005–2014)

In 1996, CGE spun off SFR and all its other telecommunications activities into a new holding company called SFR-Cegetel (later just ), which also became a competing provider of fixed-line telecommunication services, as well as a major ISP and a shareholder of the French operations of

America Online AOL (formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City, and a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo! Inc. The service tra ...

(AOL), as part of AOL's European operations which AOL of the United States ran as a joint venture with the German conglomerate

Bertelsmann The Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA, commonly known as Bertelsmann (), is a German privately held company, private multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation based in Gütersloh, North Rhine-Westphalia, ...

Vodafone Vodafone Group Public Limited Company () is a British Multinational company, multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates Service (economic ...

had a 44% share in SFR until April 2011, when it sold its entire share back to SFR's founding parent company

Vivendi Vivendi SE (stylized in all lowercase) is a French investment company headquartered in Paris. It currently wholly-owns Gameloft as well as a number of investments in several companies, primarily involved in content, entertainment, media, and t ...

. SFR is a major partner network of Vodafone in France.

Patrick Drahi era

Numericable-SFR Group (2014–2016)

Vivendi announced in March 2014 that it planned to sell its SFR division. On 14 March, it announced that it would enter exclusive negotiations with Altice/ Numericable, to the exclusion of

Bouygues Bouygues S.A. () is a French engineering group headquartered in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. Bouygues is listed on the Euronext, Euronext Paris exchange and is a blue chip (stock market), blue chip in the ...

and

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and ...

. Arnaud Montebourg, the French Minister for Industrial Renewal, triggered considerable concern when he stated that the Numericable/SFR deal was a certainty.

lost 7.5% of its market value on that day. SFR having 28.6 million subscribers versus 1.7 million for Numericable and much more notoriety, Patrick Drahi announced that SFR will replace Numericable. In late 2015, Numericable Outremer became SFR Caraïbe. On 15 February 2016, Numericable was rebranded as SFR in Belgium and Luxembourg, with the launch of new packages and the SVOD service Zive. In February 2016, Orange, SFR and Free announced the purchase of their competitor Bouygues Telecom. However, negotiations for the purchase agreement fell through a few months later.

SFR Group (2016–2018)

In April 2016, the Numericable-SFR Group, now chaired by former

Alcatel-Lucent Alcatel-Lucent S.A. () was a multinational telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, France. The company focused on Fixed line telephone, fixed, Mobile phone, mobile and telecommunications convergence, ...

CEO Michel Combes, announced it was renaming itself "SFR Group" and a new organization with three divisions: * the media (SFR Média) and advertising sales (SFR Publicité) parts headed by Alain Weill ; * the telecoms branch (SFR Télécom) steered by Michel Paulin. SFR acquires 49% of NextRadioTV (the BFM and RMC channels) and the activities of ''Altice Media Group France'' (the French press titles ''

Libération (), popularly known as ''Libé'' (), is a daily newspaper in France, founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968 in France, May 1968. Initially positioned on the far left of Fr ...

'' and ''

L'Express (, stylized in all caps) is a French weekly news magazine headquartered in Paris. The weekly stands at the political centre-right in the French media landscape, and has a lifestyle supplement, ''L'Express Styles'', and a job supplement, ''R� ...

'') from Altice, its main shareholder, for around 600 million euros.. On May 25, 2016, SFR announced that it had finalized the acquisition of ''Altice Media Group France'', and on May 12, 2016, SFR's takeover of Altice's stake in NextRadioTV was finalized. In December 2016, Altice sold SFR Belux to

. SFR was merged in

with

on 31 March 2019, and SFR Luxembourg merged with Eltrona on 1 April 2020. In January 2017, SFR announced its intention to acquire 100% of the News Participations and NextRadioTV, a process finalized in April 2018. On May 23, 2017, Altice, parent company of SFR, announced its intention to rebrand all of the group's telecom subsidiaries as "Altice". The aim for Altice is to replace the group's historic local brands such as Portugal Telecom, as well as Optimum, and Suddenlink in the US under a single international brand and to re-invoice local subsidiaries (including SFR) for its use. As far as SFR is concerned, the actual changeover was initially scheduled for June 2018, but did not take place. On November 9, 2017, Patrick Drahi set up a new governance with Alain Weill as CEO. Its aim is to "determine the group's strategic, operational, commercial and technological direction, and its execution", following the difficulties encountered by the group.

Altice France (2018–)

= Reorganizations following difficulties

= In January 2018, with the announcement of the spin-off of its shareholder, Altice was renamed Altice Europe and was then made up of SFR Group, Altice International and Altice Pay TV, which holds the broadcasting rights acquired by SFR. On February 9, 2018, SFR Group is renamed "Altice France". On April 20, 2018, the French regulatory body CSA authorized the takeover of NextRadioTV by Altice France, with Altice France becoming the #1 player in telecom-media convergence in France. On May 24, 2018, we learn that the entire NextRadioTV group is moving to join SFR in a gigantic complex in Paris in the fall. On November 30, 2018, Altice Europe announced that Altice France had reached an exclusive agreement to sell 49.99% of the capital of SFR FTTH, the structure housing SFR's fiber network assets outside major cities, to an investor group comprising Allianz Capital Partners, Axa Investment Managers Real Assets and OMERS Infrastructure for 1.8 billion euros. This values SFR FTTH at 3.6 billion euros, while retaining 100% ownership of its cable network (nine million outlets) and its 2.5 million fiber outlets in high-density areas. This agreement is in line with Altice Europe's debt reduction strategy and will enable it to make savings, since SFR FTTH will only include one million fiber outlets at the end of 2018, and will have to build as many each year to reach five million outlets by the end of 2022. In May 2020, the unions were warned of a forthcoming savings plan in the media branch. The free sports news channel RMC Sport News will cease broadcasting on June 2, 2020. In 2020, with the approval of the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

, SFR FTTH acquired Covage to become Orange's main infrastructure competitor in France. In February 2021, Altice France announced the sale of its majority stake in Hivory, which manages 10,500 telecom towers, to the Spanish group Cellnex, for an enterprise value of 5.2 billion euros. In March 2021, SFR FTTH changes its name to XP Fibre. In March 2021, Altice France announced the reduction of 1,700 jobs, including 400 in SFR stores, partly as a result of the drop in footfall linked to Covid-19, with the remainder of job cuts affecting a wide range of activities (Consumer, Network, B2B, Human Resources). In June 2021, Altice France acquires the French virtual operator Prixtel, for an undisclosed sum. In September 2021, Altice France announces the acquisition of French virtual operator Coriolis Télécom for 415 million euros. In May 2022, Altice France also announces the purchase of SYMA. Mesrop Yeremian, founder of SYMA, takes over as head of Altice France's Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) division.

= Financial difficulties and sale of 45% of the group

= At the end of 2022, the telecom operator commissioned the U.S.-based investment bank Perella Weinberg Partners to sell 92 data centers, a sale expected to be worth around one billion euros. On November 21, 2023, Altice France sold 70% of ''UltraEdge'', a division of SFR Business comprising its 257 data centers, to Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners for 530 million euros. On September 3, 2024, SFR suffered a data leak that included the IBAN. The number of customers affected is unknown. In February 2025, the main shareholder of Altice France and the Altice Group, Patrick Drahi, negotiated a reduction in Altice France's debt from 24 billion to 15.5 billion euros in exchange for the sale of a 45% stake to Altice France's creditors. The financial model developed for the SFR acquisition (purchase on credit) has been repeated for each external growth operation. Over the years, Patrick Drahi accumulated debt, but the scaffolding worked because interest rates were low, the profitability of the acquired companies was higher than the cost of the debt, and the financial community trusted Patrick Drahi to refinance his debt. But in 2022, the structure will come crashing down: the central banks' decision to raise interest rates. Average rates in the Altice Group will then be 10%. At the same time, subscriber attrition is driving down the profitability of the group's companies. The group then found itself with significant debt maturities to repay in the 2020s and a prohibitive debt refinancing rate: the

Moody's Moody's Ratings, previously and still legally known as Moody's Investors Service and often referred to as Moody's, is the bond credit rating business of Moody's Corporation, representing the company's traditional line of business and its histo ...

rating agency classified Altice's group debt as "Caa2" in March 2024, i.e. ultra-speculative. To save his group, Patrick Drahi is implementing a new strategy: sell off assets (around 10 billion euros) and negotiate with creditors to waive part of the debt (around 20%), in order to bring the debt-to-

EBITDA A company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (commonly abbreviated EBITDA, pronounced ) is a measure of a company's profitability of the operating business only, thus before any effects of indebtedness, state-mandat ...

ratio down to around four (compared with six in 2024, before the new strategy was applied). In June 2025, Altice France filed for

Chapter 15 bankruptcy Chapter 15, Title 11, United States Code is a chapter of the United States Bankruptcy Code that deals with jurisdiction in certain bankruptcy cases. Under Chapter 15, foreign bankruptcy proceedings can be recognised by US courts and foreign re ...

protection, weeks after it also entered safeguard proceedings in France.

Slogans

2022: "Soyez vous" (Translation : "Be you") *1987–1990: "Parce qu'un abonné SFR n'est pas qu'un simple numéro" *1990–1994: "Ligne SFR, Le téléphone liberté" *1994–1996: "SFR, Le monde sans fil est à vous" *1996–1999: "Sans fil SFR, le monde est à vous" *1999–2000: "Vous n'avez pas fini d'être LIBRE" *2000–2001: "SFR, le meilleur réseau" *2001–2003: "Vous serez toujours plus qu'un simple numéro" *2003–2004: "Plus de plaisir" *2004–2007: "Parlons mieux, parlons mobile" *2007–2008: "Vivons mobile" *2008–2010: "SFR, et le monde est à vous" *2010–2014: "Carrément vous" *2014–2015: "Smart comme vous" *2015–2016: "SFR, et tout s'accélère" *2016–2017: "#NewSFR" *2017: "Pour vous, SFR change" *2017–2018: "SFR, en chemin vers le meilleur" *2018: "SFR, enjoy"

SFR TV

SFR TV is a television service accessible on ''La Box de SFR'' and ''La Box Fibre de SFR'', which delivers television programs via the broadband internet telephone network ( xDSL), high-speed internet ( FTTH or FTTB fiber within Numericable). The service was also broadcast by satellite with ''SFR Sat'' available on the Astra 19.2°E satellite until October 2015. The SFR TV package includes more than 200 channels, some

pay-tv Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, b ...

channels can be added as an option, by subscribing to a specific paid package, classified by theme (sport, youth, music, international ...). On 17 November 2015, Numericable-SFR launched its SVOD service Zive, for the Power bouquet subscribers. Zive and Power packages became SFR Play in 2016. Altice signed an exclusive agreement with

Discovery Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discovery ...

and

NBCUniversal NBCUniversal Media, LLC (abbreviated as NBCU and Trade name, doing business as NBCUniversal or Comcast NBCUniversal since 2013) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational mass media and Show business, entertainment conglomerate (comp ...

in December 2016. The premium movies and series TV channel Altice Studio was launched on 22 August 2017. The Numericable and SFR channels numbering were merged on 22 August 2017, and in 2019, the Numericable exclusive channels (

MTV MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (nicknamed Nick) is an American pay television channel and the flagship property of the Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first ca ...

, J-One, Série Club,

Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (CN) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the Cartoon Network, Inc., a sub-division of the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks division of Warner Bros. Discovery. It launched on ...

...) were added to SFR ADSL offer. The brand Numericable disappeared.

SFR Sport

RMC Sport (formerly SFR Sport) is a package of French TV channels (RMC Sport 1, RMC Sport 2, RMC Sport 3, RMC Sport 4, RMC Sport 1UHD) from the SFR Group devoted to sports. They are available for SFR, Canal+, My.T and OTT subscribers. In 2016, Altice acquired the rights of many sports competitions (

Premier League The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and the highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football Lea ...

, Liga NOS, Champions League) to form its SFR Sport bouquet. MCS, MCS Extrême and Kombat Sport were rebranded as SFR Sport 2, SFR Sport 3 and SFR Sport 5; and SFR Sport 1 and 4K were launched. The SFR Sport bouquet became RMC Sport on 3 July 2018.

RED by SFR

was launched on 11 October 2011 as SFR's online-only, lower cost flanker brand, in preparation for the launch of Free Mobile the following year.