It seems that Hutchinson Essar have decided to bring Orange into line with the rest of India now they've decided to rebrand Orange (in Mubai) to Hutch.
http://www.phonefun4u.com/personal/n...rangeindia.jpg

They may have also made changes to their own logo as well. When I was in India recently, the Hutch branding had an Orange theme. The new Hutch logo has gone from Orange to Pink.

Or maybe, three steps away from still owning the brand in other parts of the world, they've been forced to give it up at last.

They may have had a brilliant stategic plan for developing their market share with this brand all around the world ...

... so why did they sell it?

Very odd.

Interesting.
Hutch owns the hutch, 3 and Orange brands. Wonder why they change things - they own a lot if you look at it on a world-wide basis (even more than evil vodafone!)

I don't quite understand that they would still own the Orange brand in parts of the world. Other networks changed much earlier; maybe in India it was co-owned for a while?

Different in Europe anyway. After all, it was Mannesmann's purchase of Orange that prompted Vodafone's takeover, as they didn't seem to want the Orange brand to become stronger by appearing in Germany.

Here's some info:

http://203.129.67.141/eng/telecom/h3g/orange.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_SA

Slight differences between those two versions. I think I was more or less with the wikipedia version, but it seems Hutchison kept the brand in Asia ...

It certainly would have been confusing if they'd rebranded their present Belgian network Orange, then it would have been on 2 different networks by now

Indeed,

I could have sworn that Hutch retained a portion of their European ownership stake even if France Telecom controls all of it now.

http://www.orange.com/English/aboutorange/...ryoforange4.asp
http://www.orange.com/English/aboutorange/...ryoforange6.asp
http://www.orange.com/English/aboutorange/...ryoforange7.asp

http://www.orange.com/English/aboutorange/ourbrand2.asp