The Carphone Warehouse is to split £10 million between 350 sales managers as their share options mature.

Carphone awarded 10000 shares to 350 store and direct sales managers in 2004 with the top-performing 25 per cent of store managers gaining 50 per cent more each year. The current share price is more than £3 each and staff can now cash in gaining £10 million before tax.

Carphone UK chief executive Andrew Harrison said: This payout is due to the hard work and commitment of our sales managers who continue to drive our business forward ultimately reflecting in our share price and their reward.

Carphone has made the top 10 Sunday Times Best Big Companies to Work For for the past two years.

Phones 4U rewarded its top Q4 salesman with a limited edition Audi A3 last week.

Chris Howells from Phones 4Us store Fareham sold a record number of contract and pre-pay phones as well as hitting customer service targets.

Phones 4U retail director John Welsh said: Chris demonstrated he can lead his team to deliver excellent results and the whole store will reap the rewards.

Phones 4U is to send over 100 staff on a four-day trip to Tenerife as part of the incentive. Another 400 staff will receive Xbox 360 consoles Samsung Camcorders MP3 players and other prizes.

Phones 4U gathered more than 300 senior managers to celebrate outstanding Q4 achievement with an exclusive black-tie award ceremony last week.

Phones 4U operations director Tom Shorten said: Its fantastic to get everyone together to celebrate a fantastic year. We are now aiming much higher for 2007.

l Phones 4U appointed former Virgin Mobile board member Charles Gurassa as non-executive chairman last week. He held the same role at Virgin Mobile. Phones 4U CEO Tim Whiting said: His experience will prove invaluable as we build.

Alcatel launched two budget prepay handsets last week and announced plans to increase sales in the UK by 30 per cent in 2007 and establish closer ties with The Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4U.

Alcatel the UKs number five handset manufacturer said it shipped 500000 units in the second half of last year on Orange T-Mobile and Tesco Mobile. Prepay Alcatel handsets were available in non-specialists Woolworths and Argos.

Alcatel sales manager William Patterson said: We aim to grow by around 30 per cent this year. We are growing our product range not just with entry-level handsets but with entry-level camera phones and multimedia devices. Our focus is on the design look and feel and finish of the handsets. Thats what will distinguish us.

He added the manufacturer would continue to develop its existing network relationships and look to develop relationships with non-traditional retailers.

Where we need to grow is with traditional retailers with Carphone and Phones 4U he added. We worked with 20:20 Unique and Comment last year but our distribution relationships have been based around fulfilment to date.

The first new Alcatel handsets the OT-E230 and the OT-C635 will be available for around £60 on prepay.

Alcatel re-launched in the UK in 2005 following its takeover by Chinese manufacturer TCL. It shipped 95000 handsets to the UK in the second half of 2005.

Strax More formed after the purchase of the more group of accessories companies by US accessories distributor Strax is to rebrand as Strax with a new logo.

Strax UK managing director and group international director Barry Colman said: As a single entity we have a significantly greater opportunity to grow into new markets. The acquisition and integration has meant we can provide more compelling solutions.

3 has announced that it has 90 per cent population coverage for its 3G services in the UK.

3 claims to have undertaken one of the fastest network rollouts in European telecoms history with the help of its managed services partnership with Ericsson announced in December 2005.

3 UK chief technology officer David Cooper said: We have the best network coverage in the UK. This means more people can access our high-speed mobile media and entertainment services than with any other network.

Handset distributor Frequency Telecom has acquired accessories supplier Frequency 3G.

The two companies were formed separately by former European Telecom staff and have shared premises for around four years.

Frequency Telecom head of marketing Stephen Donovan said: The directors have known Frequency 3G owner John Willoughby for a number of years. The opportunity to sell both handsets and accessories was too good to turn down.

Donovan said the combined company expects to turn over £24 million for the financial year ending in June 39 per cent up on last year.

He also revealed plans for expansion of its accessories range. He said: John [Willoughby] has brief to expand the accessory range and we have identified some exciting products we will be bringing into the market.

Independent phone dealers met on Thursday to brainstorm ideas in an effort to fight back against network encroachment.

In the past few months dealers have become increasingly anxious about their future thanks to the trend for networks to offer customers direct offers and their tactic of poaching.

Some have even suggested that things have deteriorated so much that it could be the end of the independent.

Dealer Jez Harris who is also founder of the Phone Dealer Forum and a Mobile News columnist said: We met to see if there was anything we could do to stop it because it is becoming worrying. It was a brainstorming session between a select few people to see how we can combat networks offering direct sales which has taken a lot of business away from us.

Harris alleged that it was well-documented that networks contact customers before dealers are able to. At the moment theres nothing we can do about it he said.

Hugh Symons business manager Bob Sweetlove who met with the dealers says that the future isnt all gloom for the independents.
I think there is a healthy market for the independent dealer to move forward in he said.

However whether its in todays market remains to be seen.
See Sharp End page 16

Sony Ericsson has added new Cyber-shot and Walkman handsets to its range.

Sony Ericsson marketing manager Richard Dorman said its new two megapixel K550i available next month will retail for around £129 on prepay.

Dorman said: Prepay has upped a gear in value terms with consumers demanding top-end products. We did very well with the K750i at £99.99. Prepay phones are no longer also-rans.

The K810i Cyber-shot features a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera and flash and is slated to arrive in the UK in the second quarter.

With 20 million Walkman phones sold to date the series continues with the W880 and W610 while four budget candy-bar phones will be added.
Walkman and Cyber-shot have been hugely important to Sony Ericssons recent success said Dorman. Were very grateful that Sony has loaned the names to us.

He argued that the two brand names gave personality to Sony Ericsson products. Consumers know what theyre getting and confusion surrounding features is kept to a minimum he added.

That helps us when it comes to non-traditional retailers such as Tesco Sainsburys and Asda which are becoming increasingly important routes to market along with catalogue retailers such as Argos.

Dorman was unable to confirm operator or network deals other than an i-mode variant of the K550 for O2 though some colour exclusives are believed to be in the pipeline.

Reaction among dealers has been mixed to 3s new Office Share plans designed for small businesses.

The new plans emphasise flexibility and are aimed at home-based and SME companies.

However 3 has fallen out of favour with many dealers recently after Mobile News reported last issue that 3s call centres in Glasgow will be closed with dealer service calls now being fielded in Maidenhead and Mumbai.

One dealer said: 3s overall customer service is abysmal. People will want to speak to people in this country. Anyone signing up must be completely bonkers.

Another said: Its too much headache not enough benefit.
3 will become the first network in the UK to include Windows Live Messenger and voicemail as well as free calls to other 3 phones.
Four packages offer voice text and data bundle while the other package offers data only.

3 UK marketing director John Penberthy-Smith said: We are doing for small businesses what we did for consumers.

Mobile phone insurance company Fonesure has launched a non-insurance-based product to back up users personal data.

Fonesave which works on more than 500 models of mobile handset costs from £2.99 a month and provides a wireless back-up service using 3G and GPRS connectivity.

Fonesure managing director Mark Gordon said: Most people feel that the content of their handset is more valuable than the phone itself.