O2 said it connected 98000 net new customers taking its total to 12.05 million customers in the UK. Vodafones overall UK active customer base dropped by 63000 customers to 12.16 million despite attracting more than 240000 customers to its live! service.

Vodafones overall customer base including inactive customers rose to 13.30 million.

In Q1 Virgin Mobile gained 253000 subscribers while T-Mobile lost 441000 subscribers.

Orange remains number one UK network with 13.31 active users but Vodafone still has the strongest contract base at almost 5.2 million compared with Oranges 4.3 million and O2s 4.06 million.

Analysis of the Q1 figures reveals an overall drop in UK mobile subscribers of 150000.

The total number of UK subscribers was 49678000 at March 31 compared with 49830000 at the end of 2002.

Vodafone also reported a drop in annual contact customer ARPU from 553 to 532. Pre-pay ARPU grew from 118 to 125.

Vodafone says sales of Vodafone live! and its Mobile Office GPRS PC card are expected to generate data revenues over the coming year. Vodafone promises 3G services by the end of the 2004 financial year conditional on the availability of handsets. The network claims 3G handsets will be only available in limited quantities until 2004 affecting its ability to launch. However 3G network roll-out is going to plan.

Vodafone subsidy reductions have reduced pre-pay customer acquisition costs from 26 to 10 per subscriber. Contract customer acquisition costs increased slightly from 116 to 117.

Vodafone revenue growth has been adversely affected by reductions in interconnect rates imposed by Oftel. Its appeal against the ruling will be heard soon.

The first service allows mobile users to buy a ringtone for any song they have tagged – that is captured and sent via the handset to Shazams song recognition service.

The second allows them to send a 30-second clip of a tagged track to another phone.

The two new services are part of Shazams bid to become the ultimate mobile phone music portal.

The services are being launched with the support of a 250000 marketing campaign that will run across radio and other media.

Shazam music and marketing director Vijay Solanki said: Theres more to Shazam than just music recognition with mobiles. Now we have a unique method for buying ringtones and for consumers to send music clips to friends all through their mobiles.

Shazam was voted Best Innovative Service (Multi-media) at the 2003 Mobile News Awards for its music recognition service.

The service available across all four networks allows users to send in a snatch of music they hear in a bar or on the radio to discover the identity of the song and the artist.

Another the MC60 has a colour screen and integrated camera and interchangeable front and back covers and keypads. Other features are polyphonic ring tones special effects and games. It weighs 86g and is available in three colours: aquamarine titanium and grenadin.

The MC60 also features polyphonic ring tones and a variety of attachable covers. It weighs in at 85g and comes with 250 hours of standby time. It will be available in the UK from September 2003.

The A52 is a no-frills handset with no MMS and camera. It does however support enhanced message services (EMS) and is configured with pre-installed images sounds and animations. It weighs 84g and has 250 hours of standby time and five hours of talk time.

Shipping in September it is aimed at entry-level consumers in emerging markets such as Eastern Europe Latin America and Africa.

Winners were Stefan Hirst (Best Branch Manager – Commercial St Hereford); David Gabb (Mystery Shop Award) and Paul Lucas (The Julian Stafford Award – from CPW Services). Fforestfach in Swansea won National New Store Opening under Clark Gilmour while The South West was Best National Area under Steve Williams.

BBC sports pundit John Inverdale hosted the awards evening.

A further 69 stores will be fitted out by the end of 2004. The format has been piloted in 10 stores in the south of England. The chain claims that turnover increased by 50 per cent in the newly fitted stores.

Virgin Mobile already has numerous stores-within-stores in Virgin Megastore but these will be Virgin Mobile-branded and segregated from the rest of the store and staffed by people trained in mobile technology and retail methods. They will be able to show customers how to set their phones up use voicemail set up VirginXtras and copy their SIM directory to their new phones.

A BT spokesperson said: We do not comment on idle speculation and gossip.

BT wants a significant share of the 13.4 billion annual mobile market. At the launch of BT Mobile Home Plan BT retail chief executive Pierre Danon said BT had a target of 300 million in annual mobile revenues by 2005 (see full story P14).

The ads promise to undercut all competitors refund any difference and give an extra 20 to any customer who can buy a cheaper handset elsewhere.

The Carphone Warehouse warned consumers not to be fooled by sexy headlines.

We have seen no evidence of widespread price cuts from Phones 4U said a Carphone Warehouse spokesperson. Its alleged price cuts seem to be focused on a select few subscription models on certain tariffs with very little change to pre-pay handsets.

The spokeswoman refused to say whether The Carphone Warehouse would be matching the Phones 4U deals maintaining that there had been no real evidence of price cuts.

Phones 4Us price guarantee comparative website service deliberately compares deals where Phones 4U is cheaper and ignores those where it is not she said. Phones 4U doesnt seem to have made any reductions on pre-pay or sim-free phones. One handset featured as cheaper at Phones 4U is out of stock.

She added: The Carphone Warehouse has long had a promise to match any handset price.

At time of going to press Phones 4U was unavailable for comment.

3 still has three handsets left (NEC 808 NEC 808y and Motorola a830) but the 606 has outsold the others many times over. NEC completed its last 606 production run. The next new handset is the 616 due to ship in the next six weeks.

3 said it would now be concentrating its efforts on promoting other handsets in the portfolio.

Bob Sweetlove business manager of 3 distributor Hugh Symons confirmed Hugh Symons has no 606 handsets in stock and said he believed the shortage of the model would affect 3 subscriber numbers although not significantly.

The fact that the 606 has come to the end of its run will slow down the rate of new subscribers but not seriously. The 606 has been the most popular handset because it is the one closest to GSM and 2.5G handsets. Our plan is to promote the other handsets available. 3 could have done without this problem or could have had other handsets ready for shipping before the 606 ended. But I am sure it will survive.

Tanny Price commercial director of 3 distributor Avenir also reckoned the end of the 606 shouldnt be a problem for dealers.

The 3 offering is strong and has built up a lot of momentum he said. There are still handsets and there are more to come. Dealers are calling us daily wanting to sell 3. That reflects the demand. If dealers put their focus on the handsets that are available there shouldnt be a problem.

A 3 spokesperson said:

This situation happens all the time Handsets have a certain run and then are discontinued. We will be having a new Motorola handset out in three or four weeks time and two others in September and October. Our current focus is the 808. It has a better battery life than the 606 and it has more memory so it is still an attractive proposition.

Subsidies on the 808 are 60 higher than the 606. The only major stumbling block selling it to new subscribers is its bulk.

Virgin Mobile has had a major falling out with The Times after the newspaper refused to let it run an advertisement criticising Orange reports Paul Tweeddale.

Virgin had planned to run the ad on Saturday August 2. This was the day after Orange had spent 250000 buying all the ad space in The Times to launch its Orange Fair advertising campaign.

On Friday evening Virgin Mobile was told by The Times that it was refusing to run the ad.

The Times told Virgin Mobile it could not insert the disputed ad because the paper was morally uncomfortable with its content.

Virgin Mobile denies the ad attacked Orange claiming it merely pointed out the negative terms of its offering such as the hidden costs of Oranges 1p SMS offering.

Virgin Mobile director of corporate affairs Steven Day commented:

We accept that any publisher has the right to decline advertisements but we are flabbergasted by The Timess position.

The ad that it refused to run had been cleared by the Advertising Standards Authority and didnt contravene any of its guidelines. It appears The Timess position runs contrary to the culture of commercial impartiality that is supposed to exist in publishing.

Times Newspapers general manager Paul Hayes replied:

We received Virgins copy for its ad very late on Friday. Due to the contentious nature of the copy we had to ensure that our usual compliance protocol could be followed. This could not be completed in time for Saturdays paper.

We talked to Virgin about running the ad this week. We are very surprised Virgin has taken this stance in the media.

But Day claimed the ad was with The Times earlier in the day and had been sent across well ahead of deadline.

While The Times refused to carry Virgin Mobiles advertisement other telecoms ads criticising rival operators were allowed to run.

Our dispute isnt with Orange. The advertising we ran was something that occurs all the time. This is between ourselves and The Times said Day.

He said the spat would not escalate to include other News International publications nor other parts of the Virgin Group.

The Virgin Group spent 60 million on advertising last year making it one of the biggest advertisers in the UK. Around half of that figure is spent to promote Virgin Mobile. A major chunk of that goes to News International.

In a similar but separate development Virgin Mobile has been forced to re-edit one of its The Devil makes work for idle thumbs television commercials following viewer complaints that accused it of being offensive to people with mental problems.

The commercial promoted Virgin Mobiles 3p on-net text tariff and was aired on May 1. Following 47 viewer complaints Virgin was instructed by the Independent Television Commission to re-edit the advertisement.

Complaints centred around a scene in which people are seen sitting in the Sparta Hospital for the Bored. Viewers complained that the image was offensive to people with mental health problems.

The ITC asked us to make the changes said Day. We already had a version of the ad that didnt feature that scene so we merely pulled that advertisement and replaced it with the other version.

An alert Orange Shop assistant spotted Sokrayla Esvandis attempt to use a stolen driving licence and Visa credit card to buy two mobile phones from the shop on Sunday August 3.

The assistant called the police after realising the photograph on the driving licence offered as ID did not resemble the customer.

Esvandi ran off but was caught. After her arrest she told police a friend had given her the credit card and driving licence. She pleaded guilty to dishonestly handling a stolen driving licence and credit card and attempting to use them to obtain the two phones.

Esvandi tried to deny in court that a lengthy criminal record was actually hers. In fact she had 30 convictions involving deceptions of a similar nature to her attempt to deceive the Orange Shop.

You have a long history of offending and you made attempts to hide your identity and record magistrates chairman Andrew Haynes told the 48-year-old Esvandi before sending her down.

The magistrates had suggested a remand for pre-sentence reports but her lawyer said she wanted the offence dealt with there and then.

She has done wrong. She has admitted it and she wants everything over and done with today. She has put her hands up to this and she wishes to take her punishment straight away even if she goes to prison said her defending solicitor.

The case had been adjourned while Horseferry Road court magistrates requested the prosecutor to arrange with police to have her mugshot brought to court to prove she was the woman with 30 convictions.

Confronted with the evidence Esvandi withdrew her denial after speaking to her lawyer in the court cells and admitted the criminal record produced to the court was actually hers.