Free Mobile has picked up 2.61 million subscribers since launching in January.

By contrast, Free said rivals Orange and SFR lost 615,000 and 620,000 subscribers over the same period.

The company said it gained nearly four percent of the French mobile market in 80 days – a result it hailed as “outstanding”.

“Enrolment is distributed evenly between the two [price] plans, between the Free community and newcomers, and between subscriptions with mobile number portability and those with a new phone number assigned,” it added.

The launch added €97.5 million to parent company Groupe Illiad’s revenues.

The group’s broadband arm also had good news; it exceeded five million subscribers for the first time, with the company claiming it won over 50 percent of net additions in Q1.

Overall, Groupe Illiad recorded a 28.6 percent year-on-year increase in revenues, to €655.7 million.

In contrast, SFR saw revenues decline 4.2 percent y-o-y to €2.9 billion between January and March.

It claimed it had “resisted well” to the Free Mobile’s launch despite losing 274,000 postpaid customers.

However, it warned that price cuts caused by the new competitive environment “have not yet had a significant impact”.

Overall, SFR said its total mobile customer base now stood at 20.8 million.

There is much work for newly appointed chairman and CEO Michel Combes to do when he arrives from Vodafone in August.

“I am fully aware of both [SFR’s] potential and the quality of its teams, while recognizing the challenges ahead,” he said earlier this month.

SFR’s parent company Vivendi saw revenues decline 0.9 percent to €7.1 billion, thanks to better performances from other media interests such as Canal+.