The three new devices are part of an effort that the French carrier hopes will increase its appeal to both younger phone buyers and those in emerging markets in Europe and Africa.

The phones will start showing up in a handful of markets next month, arriving in most countries early next year. One of the phones is a low-end Android phone, while the other two are even less expensive feature phones. All three are made by TCL Communication Technology, the Chinese company that acquired the Alcatel device business and brand name.

In an interview, Orange’s Vice President of Devices Patrick Remy said that despite the growth of smartphones, nearly half of customers are still leaving its stores with something other than a smartphone.

“We strongly believe we can do a better job, and we need to do a better job,” Remy said. The new Facebook-centric phones are one of several strategies that Orange is trying, an effort that also includes placing support staff in its stores to help new smartphone users, and efforts to help cull the masses of apps in the Android Market for those who may be intimidated by the selection.

Each of the phones is tightly integrated with Facebook’s existing software for Android and for feature phones. Earlier this year, Facebook acquired Snaptu, an Israeli company that focused on bringing the social network to feature phones.

The new Orange phones are separate from the work Facebook is doing on a higher-end HTML5-based platform, announced earlier this year.

Orange isn’t the first to tap the popularity of Facebook in an effort to boost smartphone sales. For much of this year, HTC has sold two phones — the Salsa and ChaCha (known as the Status in the U.S.), both with dedicated Facebook buttons. INQ Mobile also sells a Facebook-centric phone, though it has yet to be made available in the U.S.

Orange already sells the ChaCha, as well.

“The ChaCha is a great device with a good level of integration,” Remy said. But, he added, with the lower price of the Vancouver smartphone, Orange is “opening up some additional and new opportunities.”

With the Android device, Orange is looking to offer both a low-priced device and low service pricing. In Romania, for example, Orange plans to charge just 9 euros a month for a plan that includes unlimited use of the Facebook app, along with a bundle of voice minutes, 200 text messages and 60MB of data.

Orange plans to sell the pricier of the two feature phones for less than 60 Euros unsubsidized, and the lower-cost one for less than 40 euros.

In all three cases, Remy said, the goal is “making sure that Facebook was only one click a way whatever you are doing with your phone.”

While the Consumer Electronics Show and other big events feature acres of tiny booths crammed one against another, Mobile World Congress features a different kind of bigness. The show is spread out over eight big buildings in a historic area of town. Every couple of buildings are set several flights of stairs up from the last one, with the final two buildings just a stone’s throw from the grand National Palace.

Connecting the buildings and lining the promenade between them are various smaller trailers and bungalows.

Unlike the cramped booths at CES, the spread-out nature of Mobile World Congress allows even moderate-size companies a good amount of space to show their wares. Even those with bungalows outside a main hall stand a good chance of attracting visitors. Companies that went with that approach included Acer and INQ Mobile, which was touting its new Android phone with quick access to Facebook and Spotify.

That said, some folks’ presence at Mobile World Congress is clearly bigger than others.

One booth that stands out is Google’s first-ever Android booth, tucked in the corner of Hall 8, just inside the entrance.

The two-story pavilion features many of Google’s partners showing Android applications, as well as a place to create one’s own Android mini-me, plus a sushi-bar-style conveyor belt featuring the many phone and tablet designs based on the Google operating system. Among the designs that scrolled by while I was standing there were well-known names such as Samsung and HTC, as well as less-familiar brands such as China’s ZTE and Alcatel, which is new to Android.

Perhaps the pièce de résistance of the booth is a slide that allows children of all chronological ages to relive their youth and glide down from the top floor back to the bottom. The most popular thing, though, was a series of collectible pins being passed out throughout Mobile World Congress by various Android partners. They were a hot commodity, and by Tuesday afternoon most booths were completely out of their supply of pins, placing green candy inside the dishes instead.

While impressive, the Android booth was not the largest by any stretch. One of the more massive setups I saw was the Ericsson booth, which occupied nearly all of Hall 6. A small Sony Ericsson booth was open to the public. Behind a security gate, though, was a massive spread for the many partners of both Ericsson and Sony Ericsson. It featured two bars and two kiosks serving various tapas.

There were meeting rooms and patio tables for more-casual interactions. On display were all kinds of Ericsson technologies ranging from its core infrastructure gear to all kinds of other products and research projects.

A few caught my eye, including a mobile payment section that featured a “Museum of Money” talking about days gone by when people used paper currency with all its flaws. Under glass were such relics as money, piggy banks and counterfeit-detection pens, while Ericsson showed off its many payment technologies.

In another corner, Ericsson was showing off a vending machine that is paid, not with cash or credit card, but via SMS message. Ericsson has a unit that serves as an intermediary between the vendor and the carrier to manage the transaction.

The new non-executive chairman is Philippe Camus, the co-managing partner of the media company Lagardere, and a partner in investment firm Evercore Partners. He was previously CEO of EADS, the European Aeronautic Defense and Space company.

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