His figures are based on industry research which shows that 11 million Bluetooth chipsets have already been shipped.

One of the strongest drivers of growth will be impending legislation relating to the use of mobile phones within cars.

Handheld use in cars is already prohibited in Germany Netherlands Australia and New York. As a result the automotive sector is moving at an amazing speed to integrate Bluetooth into the dashboard he added.

Hunn also predicts that by 2006 Bluetooth chip manufacturers will sell as many products in one week as Wireless LAN specialists ship in a year.

The Link did this first in London. Were the first to do it on a national basis said Carphone Warehouse chairman Charles Dunstone.

All were trying to do is make people aware and that there are people in the phone business taking the mobile phone crime problem it seriously.

This compares with 28.8 million sent last February. Around 57 million were sent on Valentines Day alone.

For the entire month a staggering 1.2 billion text messages were sent person-to-person across the UK.

Year-on-year growth suggests that more than 60 million messages a per day will be sent by the end of the year.

Last year text messaging in the UK reached an annual total of 12.2 billion.

Philips marketing director Max Hore becomes UK & Ireland country manager reporting to Philips Paris headquarters.

Philips is relocating its Europe Middle East and Africa sales and marketing organisation to Paris. McPherson did not want to relocate and no similar senior role could be found for him in the UK.

Hore said: Philips has removed an unnecessary management layer. The roles of head of marketing for Northern Europe previously held by myself and vice-president for Northern Europe held by George became redundant.

He added: George and I had to consider other alternatives. I was offered the job of executive sales development manager for the UK and Ireland. I am the country manager with responsibility for sales and marketing.

Hore stressed that the move did not represent a reduction in commitment to the UK market.

People in the UK will only have to worry about the UK now. Previously the UK office was responsible for all of Northern Europe. The UK management has direct access to Philips in France.

He added: The new products to be launched at CeBIT will stimulate interest from operators. We are still selling the Fisio 825 into Dixons on Virgin. But we have been short of certain technologies. Our products were nice and very good but not exceptional. Rival products have a wow factor. You will start to see an integration of our mobile phones with other consumer electronics.

Called My X-5 the new model displays eight lines with 256 colours.

The X-5 includes EMS which allows animations and images to be attached to text messages.

It is compliant with the latest M-Services specifications and features GPRS.

The NEC 515 uses the fold form design. NEC sees it as a high-end product with metallic casing and a weight of 100 grams. It has a 2.2-inch screen which can display 65000 colours. Designed to enhance icon-driven software the screen can accommodate up to 14 lines of text.

GPRS-compatible the handset has a tri-browser that can manage cHTML WML and xHTML Basic. Users will be able to download content from a special section of the NECmobile.com website.

The NEC 515 supports both EMS and multimedia messaging service (MMS) enabling users not only to send text messages ringtones and logos but also to integrate text melodies pictures sounds and animations.

NEC also showcased its high-end DB7000 which comes with a 256-colour graphic display that can accommodate up to 15 lines of text. The DB7000 comes with GPRS WAP and 16-channel harmony ringer.

Four one-touch buttons allow instant access to WAP SMS voicemail and memo. A link to the NEC website allows ringtones animations phone books etc to be created and downloaded onto the phone.

Polyphonic ringtones can be assigned to individuals or groups of people enabling instant identification. One of seven LED colours can also be assigned to signal the callers identity.

The Nokia 3410 also introduces personalised animated 3D screensavers. Users will be able to download screensavers via WAP from Club Nokia.

The Nokia 3510 has GPRS changeable covers polyphonic ringtones and five games as well as 15 preloaded MIDI ringtones and four MIDI alert tones in addition to traditional ringtone facilities.

The 7210 has a high-resolution colour display stereo FM radio MMS downloadable personal applications via Java technology and polyphonic ringtones. It will ship in the third quarter.

The 7210 is also the first Nokia phone with a Pop-Port interface connector which will appear on future Nokia phones. It supports advanced functions such as digital accessory identification stereo audio and fast data connectivity.

The 6310i offers tri-band connection Bluetooth and GPRS high-speed data. It also comes with a mobile wallet application which allows users to make online transactions via WAP. The security module Wireless Identity Module (WIM) enables users to digitally sign their transactions.

At CeBIT Nokia also announced a tie-in with Lucasfilm to bring Star Wars media to Club Nokia members around the cinema release of Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones.

Star Wars-themed mobile services will be available in Europe the Middle East and Africa offering interactive services and the ability for users to download Star Wars-related graphics such as phone logos caller group graphics picture messages and screensavers as well as standard and polyphonic ringtones MMS services and mobile games.

Star Wars-themed Nokia Xpress-on phone covers will also be available for selected phones including the 3410 3510 and 3300.

Also at CeBIT Nokia revealed a souped-up 9210 Communicator with enhanced Web browsing capability improved security faster data processing support for streaming and flash content.

The revised Nokia 9210i Communicator also has a full set of new applications and enlarged internal memory. The Flash Player is for the playback of Macromedia flash animations and a RealPlayer is for real-time video and audio streaming on HSCSD networks.

Shipments of the Nokia 9210i Communicator are expected to begin in Europe and Asia in the next few months.

The 9210i has an enhanced design with silver-coloured keys on the front.

An optional attachable GPS module accessory is available which plugs into the 9210i to turn it into a street-level address finder and route finder for various European cities.

It comes with GPRS Class 8 specification and the WAP 1.2.1 browser. The M50 will be available with either an amber or blue display.

The Calling Images feature allows digital pictures to be directly downloaded over WAP or sent via EMS to a mobile phone and attributed to a number in the phone book – always putting a face to a name.

The M50 will be available in the UK later in the year at a price to be confirmed.

Siemens also launched the S45i mobile phone the successor to the S45 with new features such as email client. It also announced a free GPRS upgrade for existing S45 and ME45 users.

Among Siemens futuristic concepts shown at CeBIT was a Pendant Phone with integrated digital camera and MP3 player which weighs less than 60 grams.

Cityphone managing director Barry Donaghey confirmed Cornhill had gone.

Graham was employed on a consultancy business. The immediate deal was to get the shops open again and the old management team in place and to get the business running as it had been. There were no promises from either side beyond that.

Cornhill says he plans to remain in retail but not necessarily in mobile phones.

Talk4all had a different retail culture to what I believe in he told Mobile News.

There was no falling out. I helped with the integration of the former WAP stores in to Talk 4 All. Once that was achieved I had served my purpose.

I wish them every success but I can see them having a rough ride ahead. There is no future for independent retailers. The market is all being controlled by networks.

Any independent has to think about the future because the networks want to move away from independent dealers.

Networks are all strapped for cash. They think they can upgrade customers themselves. They are closing doors to prevent the same old business being passed around. I will remain in retail because that is what I am good at. But Im questioning as to whether it will be mobile phone retail.

TRS recently won the Repair and Service category in the recent Mobile News Awards. TRS repairs around 50000 phones a month and claims to be one of the leading mobile phone repair companies in Europe. The company has grown from a workforce of four in 1994 to almost 300 today.