Staff Reporter

Celltalk came out of voluntary administration in September last year (Mobile News September 9 2002).

The Manchester-based company once Oranges largest direct dealer went into administration in February 2002 with debts of 3.2 million.

However Celltalk director Jess Meredith Watts said payments to creditors might well increase from this amount because there were too many unjustified claims. In the meantime he remains bullish about the companys prospects for the year.

Sales have been 250 per cent higher than our targets. There are still a number of challenges starting with the reduction in handset subsidies he said.

The new Celltalk is fit and ready to face these challenges. We are a proactive tele-sales company now. We dont wait for people to ring us. I would hate to be an off-the-page player or high-street retailer right now.

The company came out of administration after Begbies Traynor helped to slash Celltalks monthly overheads by half cut office space by 75 per cent and reduce staff from 120 to 40.

Celltalk also put together a plan that would see the company continue to trade as long as it paid 10000 a month every month for two years to meet its debts as well as half of any profit made above its 10000 monthly payment.

Celltalk directors who were owed 700000 and the holding company which was owed 1.2 million agreed to defer claims for two years.

The amount of surplus money available for unsecured creditors has fallen as a result of extraordinary costs totalling 65000 incurred to keep the company trading.

The company has now paid 225000 as part of the arrangement enabling preferential creditors to be paid a total of 145000.

These included HM Customs & Excise 77678 Inland Revenue 59707 redundancy payments 3908 and employees 375. This leaves 81359 available for unsecured creditors.

Begbies Traynor supervisor Paul Stanley had written to creditors explaining why the expected 30p dividend would be lower than originally forecast. It had been envisaged that the distribution would be in the region of 35p-65p.

Stanley added that the dividend had been reduced by the extraordinary expenses but indicated the final figure was subject to change because some creditors claims have yet to be agreed.

At the height of its powers in 2000 Celltalk had a turnover of 24 million and employed more than 200 people.

2dayuk will provide 3 with breaking regional news and pictures from its 15 offices across the UK.

This will include daily news stories general and local entertainment news as well as accompanying pictures.

The independent news agencies contribute their news content to 2dayuk which is identical to much of the content of the UKs national newspapers. It now delivers 100 stories every weekday ready for WAP and SMS.

3 marketing and strategy director Lisa Gernon said:

Our agreement with 2dayuk ensures we are providing our customers with up-to-the minute regional and local news from across the UK.

With 4Mb of internal memory features include tri-band a swivel screen and a digital camera. It will come bundled with a hands-free set. European availability is expected in Q3

But despite the growth GPRS still only accounts for less than one per cent of the worlds GSM subscriber base.

Many operators launched GPRS simultaneously with MMS accounting for the big jump in GPRS network launches in Q3 2002 said EMC research director Michele Scanlon.

GPRS service is now available on 147 networks in 58 countries and has 6.4 million subscribers.

Almost all of the stores on the hit list are in prime areas with top demographics surrounding them.

The Links Hampstead High Street shop is surrounded by outlets from Orange O2 and The Carphone Warehouse. Its Kensington shop is near the 3 flagship store.

The Link managing director Nick Wood has already said that two stores in Port Talbot Wales and Staples Corner London were closing but were being relocated.

But Wood again reiterated that the closed stores would be replaced by more suitable outlets.

We are always on the lookout for new stores to replace stores that arent doing that well. We make decisions all the time. We will still be opening more stores this year than we are closing.

We are maximising store revenue. We have more than 300 stores. Some are not the right size; others arent in the right locations; some stores are far too large. It just doesnt make sense to keep them open. But we opened our fourth store on Oxford Street at the end of last year and we have recently opened a store on The Strand.

Our store in Luton is a prime example. It was coming to the end of its lease. We found a better-sized store in a better site so we didnt renew the lease.

If we can relocate stores in better areas then we will. We are always looking for the most efficient stores in the best locations.

According to another retailer however while store rationalisation does go on all the time it is unusual to see so many stores in prime locations appear on the market at the same time.

On the credit side The Link opened four business centres in London in January for its The Link Business offering.

The centres are in Basildon Lewisham Hammersmith and Oxford Street and joined existing centres in Liverpool Manchester Leeds and Birmingham.

According to The Link there will be 14 centres by the middle of the year.

The centres are designed to attract and look after small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). In each centre there will be at least two business advisers trained to evaluate the particular needs of small-business customers.

Developers can learn how to digitally sign their applications publish applications on the Orange download site and configure the device to assist development programmes.

Orange has also appointed Jeremy Dobbyn as new head of the development team charged with ensuring that Orange meets the needs of the developer community. Orange will be offering 100 free application signings to developers with new and unsigned applications for the SPV.

OrangeWorld vice-president of product infrastructure development Nick Balderson said:

Orange is looking at making it easier to develop signature devices and is committed to working with third-party developers. Developers and their applications will be essential to the success of the SPV and future Orange phones.

He added: Over the next few months Orange is to launch new devices that will run different operating systems.

Motorola has blamed the closure on the continuing global slump in the semi-conductor and consumer electronics sectors.

The closure comes two years to the day since the company closed its factory at Easter Inch Bathgate with the loss of 3100 jobs.

Motorola had hinted that closure would be likely. But with the company reporting better than expected profits in the past quarter many assumed immediate closure plans had been averted.

Around 450 employees were told all production will cease from the end of this month. Some 150 of the employees have agreed to transfer to East Kilbride but for the majority it will mean redundancy.

Union leaders have described the closure as a kick in the teeth for the workers being laid off.

Many noted cynically that the company waited until the Scottish Parliament had formally dissolved in preparation for the elections that take place on May 1.

Engineering union AEEUs national secretary Danny Carrigan commented:

This is extremely bad news. We thought wed heard the end of Motorolas job cuts with the closure of the Bathgate plant but this is another devastating blow for the Scottish economy.

A company spokesman denied the closure had been timed to avoid political pressure saying:

We are not trying to do something sneaky at this point just because Parliament is not sitting.

It was two years ago that Motorola also announced it would be embarking on a global effort to reduce costs in its wireless handset business that would involve reducing its global workforce by at least 7000.

Under the agreement The Carphone Warehouse will look after all aspects of customer management including credit checking network connection logistics billing collection and customer care. The service will launch later this year.

We are delighted to be teaming up with one of the UKs biggest retailers to offer telecoms services said The Carphone Warehouse chief executive Charles Dunstone.

We have proven expertise in managing mobile customers and our recent entry into fixed-line provides exciting growth opportunities both for us and Sainsburys.

The agreement represents a further development of The Carphone Warehouses strategy of managing mobile customers on behalf of third parties and penetrating the residential fixed-line market.

Sara Weller Sainsburys deputy managing director said: We have chosen to do this deal with The Carphone Warehouse because it is a leading provider of telecoms services and has an excellent reputation for customer support. Our customers tell us that they are looking for simplicity and value for money.

Together we will offer those qualities and increased competition in the fixed-line market.

Meanwhile Carphone Warehouse says it has attracted more than 31000 of its customers to switch from BT to its new fixed-line talktalk service promising to save customers up to a third on their bills.

The service is the result of CPWs purchase of fixed operator Opal Telecom last year. It became available throughout CPW stores from last month.

The service is available to users of BT residential lines. As well as saving 30 per cent on the price of calling fixed lines customers are promised up to 25 per cent off the cost of calling mobiles.

Carphone Warehouse chief executive Charles Dunstone said:

For all the talk about competition BT has around 80 per cent of all residential landline customers and a 73 per cent share of the residential voice market.

We think people are paying too much for telephone calls and thats why were launching talktalk.

One.Tel head of Mobile Asif Aziz said potential retail partners are showing a keener interest in the MVNOs offering since the launch of the tariffs.

We are in discussion with potential partners. There is greater interest from people now we have introduced inclusive minutes and text messages. We paused discussions with retailers and distributors to launch the new tariffs he said.

Those discussions have started up again because we want to expand our retail presence as soon as possible. We are looking for the right partner to help us achieve that he added.

People have to be keen to work with us and be able to look at the wider opportunity of One.Tels fixed and broadband Internet offerings not just mobile. We hope to announce something soon.

The new talk plans are an extension of One.Tels existing 4.99 per month One.Plan Basic tariff. One.Plan Basic 60 offers 60 minutes of inclusive minutes to landlines and other One.Tel or Vodafone mobiles for 9.99 per month. For an extra 5 customers can use the 60 inclusive minutes across all networks on One. Plan 60+.

One.Plan 100 offers 100 cross-network calls and customers are offered a 10 discount on the price of a handset or SIM card. One.Plan 120 includes 120 cross-network calls and up to 50 text messages.

This takes the daily average to 55 million compared with 44 million in February 2002 and 28.8 million in February 2001.