The Carphone Warehouse is the biggest independent retailer of mobile phones with 12 per cent market share. To retain this position we need to increase our reach. This acquisition will help us do that he said.

Tandy is a good business with excellent infrastructure and a great deal of untapped potential. We now plan to build Tandy into a significant player.

Tandy will continue to trade as an independent organisation but with more focus on mobile communications. The combined group will have 450 stores in the UK and annual sales more than 350 million

The shares dropped from 2.15 to the low 1.40s and then recovered to 1.55 (at time of writing).

Weatherill was reporting on results for the six months ended October 2 and revealed pre-tax profits of 414000. Connections in the retail division increased 60 per cent and connections from the 29 branded JWE dealers increased 43 per cent.

Weatherill said the effect of pre-pay on the market in the long-term would be beneficial.

Pre-pay has widened the cellular market place and a new type of customer is coming to the market much earlier than they might otherwise have done so. As these customers become more sophisticated in their requirements so the opportunities for upgrades and higher margin services will increase.

However in the short term the scale and nature of the changes in the market were such that the network operators significantly under-estimated consumer demand.

Pre-Christmas retail volumes while 50 per cent ahead of last year were unable to make up for reduced margins arising from pre-pay business. Supply of pre-pay is improving. We remain cautious about the network operators ability to satisfy pre-pay demand in the early months of 1999. We continue to sell all pre-pay stock we receive.

This is a great milestone. We intend to stay at the forefront of developments offering the best in communications technology said Link managing director Trevor Bish-Jones.

Helstrip left Ora a week ago. Hanson who had maintained a financial stake in Ora since selling out last March is now interviewing within the industry for a permanent managing director.

He is expected to continue playing a crucial role in the business. An announcement about a full-time MD is expected within the next three to four weeks.

Ora staff are said to be delighted with Hansons return. Insiders say that Helstrips management style did not entirely fit with the companys previous culture under Hanson.

Hanson told Mobile News:

Tim was working on futuristic products and it was felt we should be more customer focused. Im back as interim MD to play a more active role in the business. Its reasonable to say wed lost some focus on our core business.

Ive been getting more involved over last two to three months. Im pleased to be involved again. The reception Ive had has been very encouraging.

Hanson admitted that Ora had lost market share at the dealer end of its portfolio.

But that has not been significant in turnover because weve grown our key accounts.

Hanson also agreed that it was highly unusual for a management team that had raised such a colossal amount of money to acquire a company to have disbanded within a year.

These things happen. Its a question of trying to make sure we meet customer requirements. Since Ive been away the routes to market have been changing. It has been a whole new ball game.

Motorola held its top position in the analogue segment but Nokia posted the strongest growth in the total mobile telephone market with shipments increased 81.5 percent over the year before.

Nokia has based its product strategy on a few product platforms that have been adapted to all digital standards said Peter Richardson principal analyst for Dataquests Mobile Communications Worldwide program.

The companys product designs and feature sets were created from an intelligently conceived market segmentation plan that looked to consumer desire for inspiration not simply engineering ability. With 32.5 percent of mobile phone sales Western Europe was the top region in the world. The USA was second with 17.1 percent of sales followed by Japan with 16.5 percent of sales and the highest per capita level of sales for any country worldwide.

Worldwide sales of mobile telephone terminals to consumers reached 162.9 million units an increase of 51 percent over 1997 shipments according to Dataquest.

Digital mobile phone sales surpassed analogue phones in 1998 as digital accounted for 84.6 percent of total mobile phone sales.

We believe that 1998 was the year when data growth shifted up a gear in the UK said the MDAs chairman Mike Short.

From a base of one million the MDA is confident that with the right partnerships this UK customer total could exceed five million data and text customers within three years.

Whittle who is also an ex-financial director of Talkland will be in charge of developing the individual business units within the Hugh Symons Group. He reports to Hugh Symons Group chairman Geoff Roper.

There are exciting times ahead for the Hugh Symons Group and I am confident John has the ability to lead us to great success said Geoff Roper.

Whittles move to Hugh Symons has been planned to coincide with a new era of growth for the group as a whole.

His appointment is also calculated to allow Roper to step back from day-to-day operations of the company.

The Hugh Symons Group consists of four autonomous business units: computer component distribution and PC assembly distribution of Toshiba portable computers and third party peripherals mobile data solutions and distribution of Orange and On 2 One phones.

Whittle left Ora after reportedly not being happy there even though he was one of the two-man management buy-in team.

Vodafone sent out a channel bulletin at 2.25pm on January 19 that said its early upgrade commissions which let dealers upgrade customers between month 10 and 12 would be suspended with immediate effect and until further notice.

A Vodafone spokesman said: The supporting budget is being used up due to the success of the scheme.

Concerning the stricter credit checking rules he added: Weve recently seen a rise in organised fraudulent activity which has led to a tightening of our credit approval process to minimise the risk to ourselves and our partners.

Mark Finlayson managing director of Next Communications complained: Vodafones strategy just changes overnight. The change to its upgrade policy came out of the blue. To suddenly change it smacks of a knee-jerk reaction. It is not managing things at all well.

Phil Rider managing director of Digital Phone Company said he sent out around 1000 letters to Vodafone customers every month notifying them they can upgrade after 10 months. Digital Phone Company puts 95 per cent of its business through Vodafone.

You cant run a business without more than 24 hours notice of changes he said. Scores of customers have come in for upgrades that suddenly we cant fulfil. It leaves us with egg on our face.

He argued that the network should have given a weeks notice. The people in charge of Vodafones business are desensitised to what is happening at the coalface.

Jez Harris of the Mobile Phone Dealer Forum was angry that Vodafone has asked dealers to request bank statements from potential business customers.

It is very awkward because business customers are reluctant to disclose their bank statements to third parties he said. Vodafone will lose customers because independent dealers wont connect them or else we will just lose customers to Vodafones direct retail.

Byron Gambold managing director of The Phone Box added: It doesnt make any sense. Why would Vodafone want to turn away good business? Its total madness.

Ian Robinson managing director of MoCo distribution said: It is very invasive to ask business customers for that information. They are happy enough to give us phone bills for analysis but there are other ways of ascertaining that a business is legitimate.

Another dealer who wanted to remain anonymous said: Vodafone seems to have lost the ability to manage its UK business and we are taking the pain. The Japanese business is in dire trouble. All operator companies have been asked to give back out of their own budgets. The stock market is all over Vodafone like a fungus telling it to sell its Japanese arm and the US businesses.