Staff Reporter

It has so far opened stand-alone stores this year in Lakeside Gateshead and Southend. Its revised total for next year is 15-20.
Virgin Mobile retail director Paul Williams said: It s a massively exciting time but it s not the best time for massive expansion. We are looking at a gradual roll out. We are still hoping to have 200 stores it just won t happen next year.
Last week Virgin Mobile opened its first new-look concession store in Manchester s Arndale Centre.
Virgin Mobile will open six new concessions next year.

3 was keen to stress that jobs will be axed from all levels and that it will create 200 new sales roles next year.
A 3 spokesman said: Following our end of year review we are increasing our workforce and rebalancing resources to ensure the organisation is in line with our commercial goals going forward into 2007.
The cutback represents six per cent of its total workforce which numbers 2200.
The announcement comes just days after parent company Hutchison Whampoa again denied claims that it was selling 3. Hutchison managing director Canning Fok also ruled out a stockmarket flotation for 3 after a tough 2006. He considers flotation no longer a priority .

MoCo director of sales Harvey Alexander will be organising the conference and is appealing to distributors for their support. Alexander said: Nobody wants to see another distributor get hurt by an unscrupulous dealer.
A conference will be a chance to talk through issues that distributors face and is widely supported among the distributor community.
Kondor managing director Robert Haycock said: I would definitely be interested. As the mobile industry matures there are a lot of issues that we could talk about. I ve been to conferences in other industries and they were well attended. It s a chance to talk through new legislation and legal stuff.
Fone Logistics head of marketing Julien Parven said: We all compete but we are all happy to engage and it is something we would attend.

The battle over Irelands last 3G licence has been decided by Dublins High Court with the bid from Smart Telecom finally being rejected. Smart Telecoms High Court action was prompted after being told it had won the 3G licence in November 2005.

ComReg subsequently rescinded the licence offer in February 2006 amid claims that Smart had not provided the required Euro100m performance bond on the due date stipulated under the tendering procedure.

In his written judgement Mr Justice Peter Kelly stated that Smart Telecom had lost on all grounds in its bid to overturn ComRegs removal of its licence and went on to note that the misfortunes that befell Smart were of its own making.

He strongly criticised them for their actions in the matter. Justice Kelly noted that Smart was to blame for the situation it created saying it cannot point the finger at ComReg and that the company had tried and failed to make a policy of bluff bluster and threat to make up for its deficit of ability.

He added he found Smart did not satisfy the conditions for the award of the licence within the times provided – or indeed at all.

In his judgement Mr Justice Peter Kelly stated he found that ComReg had been more than fair in its treatment and in its attempts to assist Smart in meeting its obligations and that it had at all times behaved in a perfectly reasonable and lawful way.

He went on to say that the regulator gave Smart time to put its house in order. He added that Smarts attempts to engineer a time extension by submitting draft bonds that had not even been approved by the relevant banks was untenable.

Smart Telecom which was one of the countrys high-profile virtual networks had previously offered voice and broadband services to consumers but was forced last month to end voice services when Eircom disconnected its customers over an alleged billing dispute.

ComReg Chairperson Isolde Goggin commented: While we are disappointed that the award of the 3G licence has been delayed to the detriment of consumers we are pleased that these legal proceedings on this issue have now concluded.

Subject to any appeal ComReg stated it would make renewed arrangements to offer the fourth 3G licence but is not yet clear whether the licence will be automatically awarded to the previous unsuccessful bidders (Meteor & Eircom) who are now one and the same or whether ComReg will opt for a complete rerun of the tendering process delaying the award for another year.

Shebang managing director Iain Humphrey said: With the figures we are doing at the moment our turnover will be well over 10 million next year and we expect that to grow further.
Humphrey expects turnover for the group of companies including Shebang and retail chain Go Mobile to reach 40 million next year.
Shebang s new fulfilment service an Internet-based version of Sellfone 3G EPOS system includes three separate solutions. Total Web offers dealers a fully-managed web sales service. Stock credit checks and product dispatches are managed by Shebang while the customer controls the offers on the site.
Your Web lets dealers connect customers through the networks direct or through other distributors and to source their own stock. The third solution Data Web lets dealers insert a data link on their own websites to any Shebang product line.
We ve got around 25 web orders and we are increasing our design team to meet the demand. Online sales have started quite well. We have 450 retailers now signed up to the Sellfone system. It is now the dealer standard.
Humphrey also said that Go Mobile would increase its retail footprint which stands at 39 next year. Its franchise operation which includes two franchises as it stands will also increase.
He said: We are looking to grow as long as we continue to get the right support from our suppliers early next year.

A staggering 214 million messages (nearly nine million per hour) were sent between midnight on New Year s Eve and midnight on New Years Day the highest ever-daily total recorded by the Mobile Data Association (MDA).
Texters over festive period also broke records with 205 million messages (eight million per hour) being sent on Christmas Day another new record high.
The MDA has forecast that SMS will become even more popular in 2007 reaching 45 billion for the year (3.75 billion a month or 123 million a day).

Benefon chief executive officer Jonathan Bate has resigned with immediate effect.

Bate handed in his resignation prior to Christmas.

Benefon said in a statement: The board accepts his resignation and releases him from his duties. The board of directors is actively conducting a search for a new chief executive officer.

Bate is expected to take a short time-out but is understood to have a number of opportunities within the industry open to him.

Bate was unavailable for comment.

Benefon chief operating officer and former chief executive Tomi Raita will assume the responsibilities of chief executive officer as the company searches for Bate s replacement.

Bate has also worked in senior management positions at Siemens Motorola Philips and Samsung Electronics.

JAG managing director John George reacted furiously when he learned that a Motorola field rep had been bad-mouthing his business to his employees.

George has called into question the value of all manufacturers and networks field personnel and banned Motorola field staff from visiting JAG stores altogether.

The move comes after an ex-staffer who joined Motorola as a field rep was found to be making negative comments about his old company when visiting JAG stores.

JAG managing director John George said: I was really unhappy to learn of this situation. We value our staff second only to our customers. I really dont want to hear of people being invited in to our shops only to be rude about our company and demoralise our staff.

George said he tried initially to address the situation with Motorola directly. But Georges objections were dismissed by Motorola.

Said George: We didnt seem to be taken seriously by them [Motorola]. All they said was they were sure it wasnt what it sounded like. In the end I took the difficult decision to tell them we didnt want their representatives in our stores any longer. We have had a relationship with Motorola since 1990 – right from JAG s start – so it really is a shame that it came to this. Its not an action I took lightly.

JAGs larger stores are visited by around 15 field reps from networks and major manufacturers each month with each visit taking up to an hour.

Whether a store manager spending 15 hours a month talking to field personnel is the best use of time is debatable said George. We understand how important it is to keep abreast of our suppliers latest developments but Im sure that for every worthwhile visit there are also pointless ones. And hearing of a situation like this calls the whole process into question.

At the moment Jag has no plans to change its policy on other field sales forces visiting stores but George said that he will monitor the visits of field reps more closely.

Sony Ericsson posted record sales for the Christmas quarter on the back of hit handsets in Europe Asia and Latin America.

Sony Ericsson attributed its success to its K800/K790 Cyber-shot phone and Walkman range and to the fact that it maintained retail prices in the face of high consumer demand.

Its Q4 volume and sales growth topped 60 per cent compared with the end of 2005. Its volume for 2006 increased to 74.8 million units of which 26 million shipped in Q4.

Sales jumped to 10959 million (GBP7202 million) for the year of which 3782 million registered during the three months to December 31.

Income before taxes for the quarter was 502 million a year-on-year increase of 144%. Net income for the quarter was 447 million.

In total Sony Ericsson shipped 60 million music-enabled phones including 17 million Walkman phones across all its markets during 2006.

Sony Ericsson president Miles Flint said: We finished a strong year with record volumes sales and net income due to the soaring popularity of our imaging and music phones. Earlier investments in R&D and marketing have enabled us to expand the portfolio and strengthen the brand to increase consumer and operator appeal.

Our target is to become one of the top three players in the industry and the momentum we established in 2006 makes this an achievable ambition.

Sony Ericsson claimed it had grown its global market share by two per cent during Q4. Sony Ericsson has a nine per cent share of the global market it said.

The Carphone Warehouse Group has suspended its sponsorship of Channel 4s Celebrity Big Brother programme estrimated to be worth GBP3 million.

Having maintained yesterday (January 17) that the content of the show had nothing to do with it and that it would continue to back the show Carphone boss Charles Dunstone today confirmed that it had indeed terminated its sponsorship deal.

Dunstone said: Our concern has rapidly mounted about the broadcast behaviour of individuals within the Big Brother house. We are totally against all forms of racism and bullying and indeed this behaviour is entirely at odds with the brand values of The Carphone Warehouse. As a result we feel that as long as this continues we are unable to associate our brand with the programme.

We had already made it clear to Channel 4 that were this to continue we would have to consider our position. Nothing we saw last night gave us any comfort. Accordingly we have instructed Channel 4 to remove our sponsorship name and branding with immediate effect.

Television watchdog Ofcom has received over 20000 complaints from viewers that Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty has been subjected to racist remarks from fellow housemates Jade Goody Danielle Lloyd and Jo OMeara.

Carphone is expected to consider reinstating its sponsorship for future series of Big Brother.