Staff Reporter

Vodafone Mobile Connect 3G/GPRS datacard branding is now dominating all available advertising space at the site.

The package includes banner sites in the main entry hall ads on ticket barriers across the station entrance panels on escalator walls and a strip across the entrance.

Matthew White planning director at media-buying agency OMD said Canary Wharf is a great choice because it targets three core groups who are normally advertising averse: the end users; the decision-makers who would buy the product and give it to their staff; and City workers.

Sagem is to supply half-a-million myX5-2 cameraphones to its Chinese manufacturing partner Ningbo Bird. The phone will be configured to the Chinese market and manufactured by Sagem and Birds joint-venture company. It will be sold under the Bird brand. Ningbo Bird is a stock market-listed high-tech company that manufactures and markets mobile comms equipment.

The deal will see more money made available to Phones4Less for its online advertising campaign but will otherwise mean business as usual for both companies an Abbey Telecom spokesman told Mobile News.

They will effectively still compete against each other he said. They will share engineers and stock but each will retain its assets including current staff and premises. It will be business as usual.

Negotiations started six weeks ago and finished last week. Originally Abbey Telecom MD Tony Raynor approached Phones4Less.

He has an entrepreneurial spirit and saw in Phones4Less a business that was going to grow said the spokesman. Both companies are successful at present. He saw an opportunity and took it.

Both Abbey Telecom and Phones4Less deal in fixed and mobile solutions to the SME market. Abbey Telecom has an annual turnover of 1.4 million and caters to north west-based businesses from its base in Blackburn.

Online dealership Phones4Less has an annual turnover of 500000 and just two staff.

Its costs are low because it out-sources engineering work to local dealerships such as Abbey Telecom and sells to large tech-savvy companies that already know what their businesses need. Engineering and sales costs are therefore minimal.

Raynor who also becomes managing director of Phones4Less as a result of the deal said:

We have been working with Phones4Less for a number of years and it has used our team of engineers to install new telecom systems throughout the UK.

Phones4Less has a very strong presence in the telecoms market. It targets prospects that know what they want and where they want it without talking them through the usual sales cycle. As an online dealer it is able to offer systems much more competitively as it does not rely on sales teams.

The acquisition makes a great deal of common sense Raynor continued.

We will be able to reduce our cost overheads by more effectively using the engineering teams and will have greater buying power with the telecoms system manufacturers enabling both companies to make further savings for their customers.

Nine BT customers have so far been given 500 for making the switch.

TalkTalk sponsored the Channel 4 reality show Big Brother. The housemates are now being taken to their hometown CPW stores and asking locals to turn up with their BT bills. The person with the highest BT phone bill will get 500 to switch to TalkTalk.

Its a 500 consolation for having a huge BT bill said a Carphone Warehouse spokesperson. The idea is that its a great way to get the Big Brother contestants out to the stores to meet the public. The idea of bringing them home ties in nicely with the theme of the TalkTalk sponsorship slots that appeared during the show. Were bringing them home to their friends and family.

The next stop will be a Carphone Warehouse store in Woking the home of Big Brother winner Nadia at the end of the month.

Some contestants have chosen not to take part.

UMI has operations in Malaysia Indonesia Vietnam Brunei and Thailand and will be launching in China before the end of 2004.

Monstermob will have the chance to increase its stake by 10 per cent on July 1 2005.

Monstermob head Martin Higginson said:

Our investment in UMI is another step in establishing Monstermob as the leading mobile entertainment company globally.

He added: UMI will complement our existing network and consumer services divisions and will significantly increase our presence in the rapidly growing South East Asian mobile content market.

Slater had been with Sunderland for six years.

Prior to that he had stints as international brand director at drinks company Diageo global food operation Kraft Foods and confectionery giant Mars.

In a statement posted on a club fan website Sunderland chairman Bob Murray said: Jim has played a full and active role during that time and we will be sorry to lose him. We wish him all the best for the future.

Slater was not available for comment but on his resignation had said it would be a wrench to leave.

The technical service firm has hired former PNC managing director Neil Jones as its new international development manager.

Jones will head up the European roll-out and is already in discussions with interested parties in eight countries from networks to private individuals.

Ive known [TMTI MD] Crispin Thomas for 15 years and having seen the success hes made of TMTI in the UK the opportunity to help expand the brand outside the UK was one I thought I ought to try he said.

Our object is to have 10 countries signed up by the end of next year. Im already in talks with Austria Germany Italy Slovenia Finland Denmark Norway and Sweden.

I am targeting any country that has sizeable population and a good mobile penetration and ideally territory where some of our existing clients already operate.

TMTI also plans to make its presence known in Canada and North America. PNC founder Geremy Thomas is moving to Canada next April to head up a TMTI operation there.

See feature page 30

The newly-listed virtual network operator has succeeded in rolling out to independent dealers faster than expected however.

There was a phased roll-out to the independent channel. We said originally that it would be up and running by Christmas but actually its been much sooner said Alexander.

Our partners such as Phones 4U the Carphone Warehouse and The Link have always done very well for us. Some dealers have done really well and have shifted huge volumes but others havent got their heads around it.

Two similar dealers in the same area will do vastly differing amounts of business he claimed.

One will do 400 connections per week. Another will do hardly any at all. The lack of success has come from where the dealer hasnt embraced the Virgin concept and is presenting it the wrong way in store. Its all about presentation and Virgin Mobile is an easy sell. Our success in supermarkets shows that.

Last week Virgin Mobile announced a 40 per cent rise in its half yearly earnings thanks to a 29 per cent increase in subscriber numbers.

The company now has more than 4.6 million customers with 647500 joining up in the six months to September 30.

Alexander said:

There were a few doubters out there especially among the analysts. But weve had really good feedback.

They are good solid results across the board. Obviously the strong Virgin brand is at the heart of everything we do.

Our operations are now working really well too and the billing system we implemented a couple of years ago is now working extremely well. We have also rolled out 85 of our concession stores.

Virgin Mobiles operating profits were 35.6 million down from 44.7 million for the same period last year due largely to its stock flotation in July.

ARPU was down claimed Alexander because the virtual network had acquired low-value customers from competitors which had diluted its ARPU from six months ago.

Weve had the highest ARPU in the industry and as weve taken on our competitors customers it has brought our ARPU down. But we will launch new bundles soon which will attract customers with high usage patterns. So there are forces pulling in two different directions.

He is Mark Hollister who was director of indirect channels at BT Retail with the brief of managing the UK channel network of 100 partners and more than 1000 resellers.

Commenting on the appointment Carphone Warehouse group chief operating officer for telecoms David Goldie said:

We are delighted to have appointed Mark as Opals new managing director. His broad industry experience will be invaluable as we continue to grow Opal Telecom and develop the range of services we offer.

Hollister started his career at Hewlett-Packard in 1987 where he worked until 1994 establishing the high-tech companys UK network product business.

He has a first-class honours degree in engineering and an MSc in telecommunications from Aston University.

But this growth rate will gradually slow down over the next five years as the market saturates the company predicts with expected growth figures of 10 per cent next year slipping to 7.7 per cent in 2006 6.4 per cent in 2007 4.8 per cent in 2008 and just 2.6 per cent in 2009.

But despite this decline in growth annual handset sales are forecast to reach 767 million by 2009.

Growth will come from users replacing handsets with more feature-rich models it said.

ARC Group also predicted that global handset sales will be buoyed by demand from Brazil China India Mexico and Russia – markets which have not as yet become saturated.

ARC also noted that 3G handset sales are very weak everywhere except in Japan and South Korea.