MOBILE phone firm Orange delivered upbeat half-year results as it added detail to one of the City's worst kept secrets.

Some interim figures were published a week ago after a computer error sent a draft document to financial analysts.

Shares rose seven per cent as a result of the early announcement and rose a further one per cent in early trading after yesterday's report.

The group, which employs more than 6,000 staff across the North-East including a headquarters in Darlington, said it had made strong progress since last year, with pre-tax profits before one-off costs at £167.4m in the six months to June 30, compared with a £65.1m loss last time.

In the UK, Orange said its customer base had grown by 65 per cent to 11.9 million to make it the country's largest and fastest-growing mobile operator.

Jean-Francois Pontal, chief executive, said: "There may be gloom in today's equity markets - there is none in Orange.

"As always, 'the future's bright, the future's Orange', and we have a powerful pipeline of new products and services to keep the gloom away."

Orange, which is owned by France Telecom, said UK turnover in the first half of this year rose 39 per cent to £1.56bn, while the figure for the French operation was up 21 per cent at £1.94bn.

In France, the group held its position as the country's largest operator, increasing its customer base by 36 per cent to 15.9 million.

Orange also said the take-up of data services had accelerated, putting it on course to reach its target for non-voice revenues of 25 per cent of all sales by 2005.

Text messages carried on Orange's UK and French networks increased by 57 per cent on the previous half-year to 2.41 billion and Orange had a million WAP users at the end of June in the two countries.