Staff Reporter

3 has added Nokias top-end N73 handset to its device portfolio.

The Nokia N73 bar-style phone is already available in 3s own retail chain on contract and will feature in its Superdrug concessions shortly. It is also available to independent dealers to order.

A 3 spokesperson said: The N73 combines high quality brilliant photos and a sleek and stylish handset. Never again will you need your digital camera.

The Nokia N73 features a 3.2 megapixel camera with flash autofocus and Carl Zeiss optics. It is also billed as the first mobile phone with Yahoo!s Go application pre-loaded for full access to Yahoo! services.

Orange has launched two dealer incentives with Northampton distributor EBS to drive sales in the dealer channel.

The first incentive is intended to boost dealer purchase of Orange tariffs through 250 EBS dealers from August to October. The top 15 performers and their partners will be recognised with a travel reward to Dubrovnik on the Croatian coast.

The second incentive intends to increase sales of Orange SIM cards through EBS dealers. The top six performers and their partners will be rewarded with a trip to Madrid. The Madrid jaunt is themed around the partying lifestyle of the Beckhams.

Orange will support the initiatives which have been put together with UK incentive company Archer Young with pre-launch teasers letters and brochures e-shots and trade press adverts.

Archer Young account director Sarah Booth said: The travel reward recognises the hard work and success of the dealers and gives them an experience they may otherwise not have a chance to have.

The Yahoo! Go for Mobile suite of services includes Yahoo! Mail Yahoo! Search Yahoo! Address Book and Yahoo! Local.

Motorola corporate vice-president of global mobile products Scott Durchslag said: Our collaboration with Yahoo! will ensure that our customers and consumers get the most optimised Yahoo! experience possible on the coolest mobile devices.?

The companies will jointly market Motorola devices that have Yahoo! Go for Mobile pre-installed through their online networks device packaging and other targeted channels.

Varty left earlier this month. He has been replaced by Ben Threlfall formerly Vodafone head of IT reseller and distribution.

Both Varty and Vodafone refused to comment.

Vartys exit from Vodafone coincides with Vodafone UK CEO Bill Morrows surprise departure last week and follows on the heels of a slew of Vodafone channel staff changes.

These include the departures of head of sales for commercial partnerships Richard Hurring director of enterprise sales Chris Huggett senior manager of business partnerships Jason Rigby and head of dealer sales Iain Graham.

One distributor source said: It is a bit of a merry-go-round and Keiths departure has come as a bit of a shock. He hadnt been there a very long time. Richard Hurring was only there for just over a year.?

Avenir UK managing director Tanny Price said: Vodafone is going through a period of change with its channel staff. But the staff it has brought in to replace the old guard have been very impressive. Ben Threlfall is very nice and highly intelligent. These are experienced guys who have spent some quality time with us to find out about our business and how we can move forward together. It is very refreshing.?

Threlfall reports to Vodafones new head of sales for commercial partnerships Rob Sandford who reports to corporate sales chief Amanda Baker.

The Palm Treo smartphone will include Microsoft Windows Mobile software and be available first to Vodafone customers before the year end.

This collaboration will provide a powerful tool for enterprise customers? said Palm senior vice-president of worldwide sales and customer relations. Partnering with Vodafone a world-class mobile operator is a significant step towards accelerating our geographic expansion and serving our European customers.?

Some two per cent of business e-mail boxes worldwide are accessed via mobile according to market research firm The Radicati Group. Palm Vodafone and Microsoft aim to target this large untapped market with real-time push e-mail using Microsofts Messaging and Security Feature Pack.

An average of 112 million messages were sent each day in June an increase of almost 30 per cent on the same period last year.

The World Cup is thought to have encouraged people to text friends with 140 million messages sent on June 15 when England played Trinidad & Tobago and on and July 1 when the team played Portugal. This is equivalent to six million SMS messages every hour.

The MDA predicts that 36.5 billion texts will be sent across the whole of 2006.
SMS – World Cup boost

The last half billion pre-pay subscriptions have been gained by mobile operators in less than 17 months since February 2005 nearly twice as fast as the 29 months it took to add the previous half billion? said senior analyst Abigail Browne.

The report – World Cellular Information Service – also predicted that while the number of pre-pay users is expected to keep rising growth will slow in coming years.

Informa also predicted that while overall mobile phone subscriptions will slowly decline the number of 3.5G mobile broadband subscribers will increase tenfold from 2.5 million in 2006 to more than 300 million in 2011.

However Informa predicts that a boom in 3.5G handsets is unlikely to occur until 2008.

Principle analyst Malik Saadi blamed a lack of compelling devices? for the slow uptake of 3.5G.

The LG LEO KG920 mobile phone will be the first mobile to have a five megapixel camera.

An LG spokeswoman said: We hope it will outperform some of the single device cameras on the market. This really is a proper camera.?

Other features include an autofocus lens a strobe flash and high-quality video recording.

The phone has a twist-design that allows people to take and view self-portrait snaps of themselves in the phones high-resolution screen. It will also come with a built-in MP3 player and Bluetooth.

LG is also set to launch a flip phone already dubbed the Chocolate flip? later this year. However the phone will not actually be part of its black label range.

It is the first joint offering since the companys acquisition of Virgin Mobile on July 4.

The package will combine NTLs existing TV broadband and fixed-line offers with a Virgin Mobile contract although the details of the mobile phone aspect of the package have not been finalised. The package will be priced at 40 a month.

The package will initially be offered through Virgins own stores but the independent channel may also get the chance to sell it according to trading director Graeme Hutchinson.

Initially we are selling the package through our own stores but we will be very quickly looking at where we can sell it through indirect retail? confirmed Hutchinson.

Its a case of which channels are most appropriate and whether the terms of the package are right for us and the retailer.?

NTL has promised additional packages in the future that will allow customers to buy any two services for 20 a month or any three for 30.

3s interim results show the company is increasing revenue in the UK faster than it is increasing its customer base.

The figures show that 3 UKs total revenue grew 16 per cent to GBP700338000 between December 31 2005 and June 30 this year. Year-on-year the figure shows a rise of 40 per cent. Total customer numbers grew just four per cent in the six months to June 30.

3 parent company Hutchison Whampoa attributed this partly to higher numbers of more valuable contract customers – a growth of seven per cent in the UK – though it admitted fierce competition in the UK market had boosted churn to 3.6 per cent in July this year.

The total number of 3 customers in the UK and Ireland at June 30 was 3750000 of which 1525000 were pre-pay and 2225000 were contract.

UK ARPU was up 20 per cent on the end of 2005 to GBP41.51 while non-voice ARPU was up from GBP8 in December to GBP10.16 in June and is now a quarter of total ARPU.

In addition 3 predicted rollout of its 3.5G HSDPA network would be completed for the major cities in the fourth quarter of the year and for the whole network in 2007.