Staff Reporter

Ollila also told 300 telecoms analysts in London that Nokia expects profitability to be above industry average.

We have become one of the established players an industry leader by most measures. What this means is that the key strategic objective we identified in 1992 to focus on the fastest-growing sectors in telecommunications are no longer enough. Our intent is to achieve industry leadership in the most attractive global communications segments.

Ollila said Nokia has now made 100 million phones in total. The milestone phone a Nokia 9110 Communicator will be put on display at Nokias HQ in Espoo Finland.

Nokia said its global production of phones surpassed a million a week for several weeks in the Autumn.

The companys largest manufacturing site is at Fort Worth in the USA.

The PocketPhone Shop has 100 stores and plans to increase the store portfolio by a further 50 stores within the first three months of this year according to managing director Simon Jordan.

Id like to thank everyone who has bought a phone from The PocketPhone Shop. We couldnt have done it without you said Jordan.

The company has hired field marketing company EMS to build its presence in the market. EMS will provide a branded Panasonic team to handle all field marketing activity such as product distribution product placement training in-store demonstrations and new product launches.

EMSs people will visit up to 900 independent dealers and multiple outlets including The Link The Car Phone Warehouse Dixons etc.

Panasonic recognises the need to take a leading role in educating customers and retailers abut what our phones can do said Panasonic retail development manager John Hutchings.

Said EMS chairman Richard Thompson:

Advertising can go part of the way in educating retailers and consumers about what a phone can do. But at the end of the day field marketing allows us to show people face-to-face how different Panasonic phones work and answer any enquiries they may have.

All new employees will now be required to attend an intensive induction programme at the new skills facility situated near the first Phones 4U shop in Stoke.

We are going through an itensive recruitment programme to cope with rapid growth. The new centre allows us to generate trained advisors at the rate of 16 a week. Its been a challenge to attract the right people into the business said finance director Tom Philips.

The film which stars Gene Hackman and Will Smith and is directed by top British director Tony Scott (Top Gun /Crimson Tide etc) shows the main characters communicating with each other using Philips phones and pagers.

Nokia did a similar deal with the makers of The Saint and Ericsson supplied a futuristic phone for the most recent Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies.

But unlike The Saint and Tomorrow Never Dies where the phones were non-working props all the Philips devices seen in Enemy of the State were apparently fully functional with the actors having live conversations on them on camera.

In the UK Philips is supporting Enemy of the State with a 250000 advertising and marketing campaign promoting the Genie Sport the latest version of the Philips Genie.

Sagem has programmed the RC 715 phones with a dedicated touch key that connects to the credit line showing the amount of available credit left.

A quarter of the 100000 phones are to be delivered before Christmas.

Sagem shares rose FF2 when news of the order came out. The company says it will be making five million mobile phones next year compared with three million in 1998.

One employee Minesh Patel (19) was caught on hidden camera stealing a phone that led to him being sentenced to do 60 hours of community service.

The prosecutor said Patel had been working at Peter Joness store in Sloane Street unaware that a hidden camera had been placed in the stock-room.

The camera recorded his movements as he walked around the room and opened a box containing a 269 Ericsson handset. He put this in his jacket. Upon leaving the store he was stopped by a shop detective who found the stolen phone.

At a police interview he said he wanted to give the phone to his sister as a present.

Patels other excuse was that he had heard other employees talking about stealing stock and decided on the spur of the moment to try it himself.

It was an act of crass stupidity by this young man said his solicitor.

His replacement is Paul Smith who joined the company from the software industry in November as dealer sales general manager.

Another new appointment at 4U is Bill Colley who becomes mamanaging director of 4U Ltd and Phones 4U Ltd. the store-owning part of the business.

Colley was previously in charge of 4Us Dutch subsidiary.

Thus Crown which owed Linkman money had to pay the Talk 2 Us debt on behalf of Linkman.

The company in question is Euronortel (real name Linkman Communications). It turned out they were sub-sub-dealing and misleading dealers by offering higher commission rates than even they were being paid explained Colin Alexander of Talk 2 Us in West Yorkshire.

Having the feeling of being conned we decided to take Euronortel to Court and place a Judgment on them. This would not necessarily mean that we would be paid. Alternatively we could apply for a Garnishee Order. We stood to lose about 4500 so what the heck.

We would like to extend our praise and gratitude to Roger Adey director of Crown who dealt with our enquiries with patience and professionalism. We were not the only disgruntled party who contacted him regarding Euronortel but he was always available. He was not aware of the Garnishee Order until it arrived on his doorstep.

Alexander says he also managed to get 50 per cent of a debt owed to him by Orange and Sony distributor Scapegold which went bust last month.

We actually visited Scapegolds offices unannounced and insisted they pay by transfer immediately direct into our bank account. Thankfully we achieved a 50 per cent settlement. The rest of the money is unlikely to be forthcoming.