Staff Reporter

The fridge-and-phone deal gives customers a Budweiser mini-fridge thrown in with sale of a 129.99 Motorola V220 on Orange.

Its a standard thing at this time of year. We work differently with each independent retailer. Were putting together a promotion with Argos based around the new Pixar movie The Incredibles said an Orange spokesperson.

A Woolworths spokesperson added: Weve done this type of promotion for the past couple of years. Its about delivering a gift item at Christmas and mobile phones are very important to us at this time of year.

Were doing a lot of offers on mobile phones at the moment which include offering other types of electrical goods such as boom boxes televisions sets and so forth.

Any suggestion that the fridge giveaway is a response to the claim by Orange CEO Sanjiv Ahujas that 3G mobile phones overheat to the extent that you can fry eggs on them is coincidental (Mobile News October 15).

So says BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) which claims it has doubled its subscriber base to two million in the past 10 months.

RIM president Mike Lazaridis claimed the surge in sales has been due to the number of new BlackBerry devices that have been launched so far this year.

He added that the BlackBerry is the first integrated wireless data product to reach two million users.

It took five years to establish the market and attract the first million.

Then there is the small matter of network access. It was Meteor Mobile who won the last Ireland GSM licence all those years ago meaning Orange has no network in the Republic. Could it have meant to put the posters up in Belfast?

Multiple tables have been snapped up by all the main industry players including Sagem Samsung Data Select 20:20 Motorola Sony Ericsson Sharp Nokia Siemens Sendo Philips LG The Carphone Warehouse Dextra Pama Elite European Telecom Unique Distribution Mainline Yes Telecom and Hugh Symons plus the sponsoring networks – Vodafone Orange O2 and Virgin Mobile.

See advertisement page 22

We want to do something big like the V Festival aimed at that sort of demographic said Nokia marketing head Simon Lloyd.

Its not going to be a purely music event although music will probably play some part. All that is currently under discussion. It will probably be free he added.

Nokias new multi-million-pound sponsorship deal with ITV star search programme The X Factor started on Saturday night (September 4). Its the most Nokia has spent on a single advertising project in the UK. The show is expected to attract nine million viewers.

Were really excited to be associated with one of the flagship shows of ITVs autumn season and the scope of activity weve developed to support the sponsorship really bears this out said Lloyd.

The audience is in a key demographic for us. The show runs to Christmas so our brand and the key products in our portfolio will be pushed at a very critical time.

Nokia has created an X Factor edition of the new Nokia 3220 which will be available at The Carphone Warehouse from early October. The handset features X Factor wallpaper the theme tune as a polyphonic ring tone and two cut-out covers.

A special promotion with CPW offers Nokia purchasers the chance to win thousands of pounds. New handsets will display a start-up message announcing whether the owner has won a share of a 50000 prize fund with the top prize being 25000.

From October Nokia is also running an X Factor-themed promotion in selected Tesco stores and in Nokia-branded retail outlets.

The Nokia 3220 stars alongside the latest handsets in Nokias portfolio in the shows advertising break bumpers. The storylines show how Nokia products including the Nokia 2650 the megapixel Nokia 7610 camera phone the rugged Nokia 5140 and the N-Gage QD games deck all give you the X Factor.

Commenting on the sponsorship deal Lloyd said:

Nokias integrated X Factor marketing campaign also includes a website where X Factor fans can find exclusive competitions plus details on Nokia mobile phones. Theres an interactive TV site too where you can win an X Factor Nokia 3220.

Members of the Nokia handset owners club Club Nokia can win VIP tickets for the X Factor audience.

O2 says it has lost 2 million in revenues after billing 125000 customers up to two-and-a-half months late.

The network has been migrating customers to a new billing system over the past three years. But it hadnt charged 125000 customers for calls and data transferral beyond their regular monthly fees between July and early October this year.

O2 has advised incorrectly billed customers they will be charged for the discrepancy at a discounted rate. The discount will cost O2 2 million. A payment plan will be offered to people struggling to repay the backlog.

We didnt charge 125000 customers for calls that were made outside of their bundles said a spokesman for O2.

We have now identified the error sent out a letter and offered a 25 per cent discount on those calls as a goodwill gesture. We havent over- or under-billed anyone. We have just been late with processing the bills.

The spokesman said that O2 admitted the gaffe was a random hiccup.

He said: We have fixed the problem and re-processed the bills. It affects less than one per cent of ourcustomer base.

As part of total revenues of 4.5 billion it is relatively small. We admit there was a problem. But it is now fixed. It is a massive three-year programme to migrate everyone on to the modern new system.

We have many customers and there is a high degree of complexity. But we certainly wouldnt expect this to happen again.

O2 expects to complete the migration towards the end of next year.

The dispute is now settled said Sendo CEO Hugh Brogan. There is a monetary compensation to Microsoft which has relinquished its four per cent stake in the company and will no longer be a shareholder nor have any activity with Sendo.

Sendo formed a partnership with Microsoft in 2001 to develop the Windows-based Z100 smartphone. At the end of 2002 Sendo said Microsoft took information gained during the development of the Z100 and passed it to Taiwanese company HTC. HTC then developed Oranges SPV in partnership with Microsoft. The doomed Z100 never made it to market.

Just over a year ago Sendo said it was suing Orange as the circuit board of the SPV smartphone allegedly infringed a Sendo patent. The action was dropped after Sendo sold a number of its patents and intellectual property rights to computer company Texas Instruments.

Brogan said: We set out to defend our intellectual property and right the wrongs against us. We would have preferred to have brought the Z100 to market but weve moved on.

The global trade association represents more than 660 GSM mobile operators serving some 1.1 billion users across 208 countries and territories.

GSMA aims to drive success for our operator members said GSMA CEO Rob Conway. With its insight into mobile handsets Nokia can make a major contribution to the success of many of our initiatives.

Samsung launched the Elect programme two years ago to reach out to dealers and provide them with constructive continual support that is relevant and useful from training through to the point of sale.

There were tough market conditions – the independent sector was struggling to compete against the high-street multiples said Simon Walsh Samsung Mobile UK head of retail and distribution.

There was an increasing diversity of routes to market diminishing support for independents a lack of consistent support and a lack of direct contact with manufacturers. Samsung Elect was about bridging that gap.

Director of Samsung Mobile UK Mark Mitchinson said that the second phase has come about because Samsung Mobile had grown in reputation market share strength and stature placing it at the forefront of both the national and global mobile marketplace.

Mitchinson claimed that Samsung had raised the bar in handset design and was now going to do the same for dealer education and development.

We are offering a constant support channel for the dealer community that is radical reliable informative and user-friendly rather than sporadic and dated. Independent dealers can benefit from a two-way channel that offers product information advice education and incentives and also allows them opportunities to air their views.

Mitchinson went on to say that Samsung took the protection and support of the retailer community very seriously. According to the manufacturer feedback from UK dealers was crucial in shaping the next phase of the Elect programme.

Phase two sees the launch of a revamped dealer website that has so far cost 1 million. This will give access to products accessories point-of-sale material and marketing campaigns. There will be downloadable TV and press adverts high-resolution product images and online ordering.

Walsh said the investment in the project was huge and the manufacturer would be putting a further 1.1 million into the Elect programme over the next 12 months.

We closed down our previous website two months ago. The new site is Samsungelect.co.uk. This will be the primary source of communication and will provide the most reliable and up-to-date information immediately.

The site will also contain information about Elect Rewards which will allow dealers to earn reward points and redeem them against a variety of business-related Samsung products such as handsets monitors printers and laptops.

Elect Rewards works on a points system whereby dealers get 10 points for every Samsung customer they connect and register to the Samsung Fun Club.

According to Walsh there are extra points to be earned for hitting monthly and annual targets. There is also the opportunity to earn extra points if the dealer becomes a Samsung Elect Plus member.

The target we are setting for dealers is 10 Fun Club connections which is easy said Walsh. If they hit this every month over the year they would earn 5000 reward points which could be redeemed for 2000 worth of equipment including a TFT flat-screen TV a laser printer a digital camera and a display unit.

There is no limit to the number points they can earn and redeem against a number of products. Dealers at the roadshows say this is the first scheme of its kind.

For the second phase of Elect Samsung has also beefed up its online training.

Samsung UK training manager Sam Woolhouse explained that there are two sections on the web site. One will feature information about new handsets that dealers and novice sales people can access to familiarise themselves with kit before it goes on sale.

The site will also host online exams to test dealers about their product knowledge. A single training session should only take a maximum of five minutes to complete.

Walsh believed phase two of Elect would be a hit with dealers.

Im sure Elect will prove to be very popular among dealers he said. When we launched Samsung Elect no one was paying attention to the indies. Phase two takes this attention to a different level.

Other manufacturers have tried to follow us. Siemens has quite an attractive website giving dealers basic information.

But it seems to be more about PR than substance.

We are listening to what the independent channel wants and we are meeting their needs. Elect is a work in progress. Nothing is fixed. We will amend and change it when we get feedback.

Prints will be signed by the celebrities and auctioned on eBay with proceeds going to childrens charity Cancer & Leukaemia in Childhood research fund (CLIC).