Angers hosts one of the new France Free Center

The French internet, tv and and telephone operator Free opened a few days ago a store in Plantagenet Street. That "Free Centre" is one of the first opened by the company all over France with Laval, Rouen, Le Havre and Troyes. The decision is linked to the wish of Free to increase its market share in the mobile phone along Orange, Bouygues or Sfr. All the sores range in a circle distant between 50 and 200 km from Paris.

The design of the store looks to the one of the Apple store, located at Ralliement square : at the same time sober and bright, even minimalist. The visitors see nothing but the display of the Free services. One may ask why Angers was chosen by the company to host one of its first stores. According to marketing companies, Angers would sum-up the main characteristics of French consumption trends. For that reason, a French marketing company, Marketing Scan, had already chosen more than ten years ago Angers to realize surveys ordered by their ordering parties.

That opening is reassuring for Angers down town because it could reflect its attractiveness in spite of the difficulties to park cars, and in the Plantagenet Street especially where a hifi distributor stated it was endangered by the decrease of its turnover. Free could plan to open one hundred Free Centres in the month to come.