A BenQ spokesman said: Siemens spotted a gap in the market. Women arent catered to in the UK by handset manufacturers. We have an all-female marketing team at Siemens and they have persuaded Germany to produce a limited edition phone aimed at women for the UK market. A lot of our hopes for the Christmas market are pinned on it.

BenQ said that it would launch its first 3G phones in January.

Following the official handover of Siemens Mobile to Taiwanese company BenQ last week Siemens confirmed the appointment of Philip Rambech as managing director. Rambech previously worked at PalmOne and Sony Ericsson.

Philip has only been with us for a week so he has to analyse the situation before he sets out his strategy said the spokesman.

The CL75 will be available from the end of October priced 99.99.

LG said last week that its portfolio of devices for launch in Q2 2006 to be previewed at 3GSM in Barcelona in February will be the first LG handsets in the UK to feature unique LG design characteristics.

The marketing push will start in March and run through the year. It will include cinema advertising as well as television and print media.

Weve got fantastic products in the pipeline and we will launch a marketing campaign to reflect the prestige of the new products in Q2 said LG Mobile UK marketing manager John Bernard. LG Mobile will come to life more in 2006 and be very aggressive on the back of the handset range and this campaign.

We want to hammer home the point about LG Mobile as a young vibrant brand. You will see us taking the brand to the key 16- to 25-year-old market and attacking that market segment.

The 2006 campaign comes on the back of LG Mobiles sponsorship of the Action Sports Championships itself worth several million pounds. The Action Sports Championships event encompasses skateboarding BMX and freestyle motocross and climaxes in Manchester on October 21-23.

LG will launch handsets to the open market from next month.

Among the Q2 2006 launches is the LG LP5500 a five megapixel cameraphone with a 180-degree swivel screen and digital camera. Also slated for March is a new device a slim black slider phone that is still under wraps which is just 10mm thick.

The working model shown to journalists in Seoul South Korea last week features a checkerboard keypad and a 1.3 megapixel camera. LG Mobile executive vice president of R&D Skott Ahn said that the launch model would feature a two megapixel camera and appear in both GSM and 3G versions.

LG Mobile vice-president and general manager for Europe Simon Hahm said: The Carphone Warehouse and The Caudwell Group have both expressed excitement at LGs Q2 range already and are both looking to broker periods of exclusivity with us.

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The network is offering a single flat-rate charge for both voice calls (15p on-net and 35p cross-net) and messaging (10p per SMS 30p per MMS and 50p per video message).

Access to Orange World Extra costs 1 per megabyte of data while TV subscription costs 10 for up to 20 hours usage per month.

Oranges TRY preview service also applies to pre-pay services for a limited period.

Orange is offering seven pre-pay 3G handsets. The Nokia 6680 is available at 269.99; Nokia 6630 at 159.99; Sony Ericsson K600i at 189.99; Samsung Z500 at 239.99; Samsung Z107 at 99.99; Sanyo S750i at 99.99 and Sanyo S750 at 79.99.

It produces and packages streaming news and entertainment content for the major 3G mobile phone operators – 3 O2 and Vodafone – and for the MobiTV channel on Orange.

ITN Multimedia fought off international competition to take first place. Other finalists in the category included Bharti Airtel Turkcell Ringback and ntl On Demand.

The judges commendation said: News is a logical content for 3G and ITN has surely worked out how to deliver it. ITN has not stuck to the television formula of accessible journalism but has extended its brand into entertainment news business news and youth-focused bulletins.

Nicholas Wheeler managing director of ITN Multimedia said: This justifies the commitment ITN has shown to pioneering the new medium. We have a fantastic team of hard-working resourceful journalists who have genuinely created something fresh and new.

This is going to be a great 12 months for 3G.

The company released a pre-close statement last week that revised previous forecasts on service revenue growth.

Underlying service revenue growth for the half-year was around 11 per cent. As a result O2 said it expected to see a rise in UK service revenue growth of between six per cent and nine per cent for the full year.

The network put the growth down to tighter control on customer churn coupled with strong customer acquisition. In a statement O2 said that it had managed a net increase in customers of 400000. Around 45 per cent of those new customers are contract subscribers.

O2 chief executive Peter Erskine commented: O2 UK continues to perform well in a highly competitive market with our active base growing to more than 15 million customers. The customer retention programmes put in place at the start of the year are continuing to deliver improving churn metrics.

However for all the earnings gains earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation will remain flat compared to the same period last year on a like-for-like basis.

The company said that capital expenditure for the year had increased by 100 million to 15 billion. However this increase will be primarily sunk into Airwave O2s emergency services network.

More details of first-half trading will be announced by the network next month.

Fans of the band can dial 62003 from any 3G mobile handset to access the portal which contains video clips of their latest single Push The Button and video mail greetings from the band. According to Voxsurf Islands technology partner in the campaign it is the first music label to offer this service to fans.

Content is accessed by making a video call through the shortcode. Users are then presented with a menu of video mail recordings and video clips.

Sugababes are the first act to set up this new marketing channel putting interactive personal content in the palm of their fans hands said Island Records new media manager Glenn Cooper.

A Warrant for Execution of Judgment has been ordered against the company. Clark White Publications has also issued a County Court summons against Otter Telecom another of Barkers companies also for non-payment of advertising bills.

Celltalk chairman Derek Joseph told shareholders at an AGM last week that the company fell short of sales targets during the first four months of the financial year and expected to report losses for the six months to September 30.

Celltalk refused to comment this week on its results or its cost-cutting plans.

Joseph put the companys poor performance down to the late running of a cost-saving IT project the cost of setting up a call centre in South Africa and a shortfall in sales.

Joseph said: These issues are being addressed and significant reductions in the UK cost base are being implemented. We hope that these factors will achieve a better trading position for the second half of the year although the company expects to report substantial losses for the full year.

Celltalk went into administration in 2001. It escaped a Company Voluntary Arrangement by paying creditors 350000 and then made a profit of 632000 in the first half of 2004.

Dealers will be awarded points redeemable as prizes for each new connection on any network. The promotion runs available across all five networks. Some networks are considering awarding points for upgrades as well as new connections.

We will still award dealers with CDs and DVDs. So even smaller dealers can take part and get rewards. Everyones a winner. We are still negotiating some of the prizes though. We want exclusive prizes like designer jewellery from companies like Cartier and Tag Heuer and top-end home entertainment equipment from the likes of Bose and Bang & Olufsen.

The total cost of the scheme across the quarter is estimated at between 70000 and 90000 depending on the volume of connections and the focus of the networks.

Orange is jettisoning its wise man and returning to its original 1994 The Futures Bright slogan for a new 13 million ad campaign.

The network is attempting to reverse a fall-off in consumer loyalty. The new campaign which airs on September 19. Head of brand and advertising Kristof Fahy said:We hope that the campaign will re-ignite the optimism that people feel for the Orange brand. British consumers now care less about their mobile operator than their margarine brand. We need to restate Oranges optimistic view of the future.

The two ads are adapted from true stories and are set respectively in New York and Rio de Janeiro. The New York advert tells of a citywide blackout. The Rio advert is about a street cleaner whose reputation for spontaneous dancing is spread via MMS and made him a star. Orange insisted that it was not simply revisiting past glories.

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Dutch operator KPN confirmed last week that it held discussions with Deutsche Telekom about the joint-acquisition of O2. The deal originally mooted by Deutsche Telekom would have seen it acquire a controlling stake in O2 UK and Ireland while KPN took charge of O2 Germany. However both companies said that preliminary talks had been abandoned.

An O2 spokesman said: At no point have they contacted O2 or our advisers. (CEO) Peter Erskine went on record as saying that O2 has held no discussions with any other company since the talks with KPN in February 2004.

We believe we have a credible organic growth structure that will deliver more value to the shareholders. There is still plenty of growth within O2.

Reports in the press had claimed that a takeover offer of 14 billion which valued O2 at 160p per share was discussed by Deutsche Telekom and KPN.

See Business Watch page 14