Refuel to Win offers the chance to win pairs of VIP packages to the Grand Prix meeting at Silverstone in July every time a customer carries out an electronic top-up for 10 or more. For Text Drive to Win every time customers send a text message they have the chance to win a holiday to Florence which includes a trip to the Maranello race meeting.

Keep Your Phone On offers 2500 Vodafone and Ferrari limited edition fleeces up for grabs by replying within three hours to a winning text message.

This takes staff numbers to almost 1500 employees. The company is recruiting customer service advisors for its large customer centre.

Virgin Mobile expects to soon report strong sales figures for the first three months of 2002. The company now has more than 1.6 million customers.

The companys failure was due to falling orders and the loss of its account to supply its largest customer Co-Op with Orange pre-pay phones and vouchers.

The company is still trading while joint administrators Roger Oldfield and Jim Tucker try to sell it as a going concern.

Full details of the companys trading position were yet to be released as Mobile News went to press last week. However a KPMG spokesperson confirmed last Wednesday night:

New World Payphones is in the hands of administrative receivers. The administrators wish to sell it as a going concern and are seeking interested buyers.

The company will be working jointly to develop a platform capable of becoming the global standard for 3G phones. The intention is to pool their knowledge and produce actual handsets in the near future.

At the same time Matsushita and NEC announced their progress on the joint development of a platform for 3G mobile handsets as well as its application software.

In their first public statement since the firms formed a development alliance last August Matsushita and NEC announced that they have completed the core architecture design which will be used in the 3G mobile handset platform.

This architecture will be used in future NEC and Matsushita 3G mobile handsets and may be licensed to other companies that are interested in using the platform.

Matsushita and NEC have started software developmental activities by establishing a joint development in Yokohama named the 3G Mobile Collaboration Office which aims to speed up product development.

Matsushita and NEC say they have completed the first step in advancing their global strategy for 3G mobile handsets in such areas as technical standardisation core technology and software and product assessment.

Two 30-second commercials promote the up and coming DB7000 and a prototype 3G phone.

The TV burst is backed by a six-week ad campaign in The Times to boost awareness of NECs role in 3G developments.

The ads and two TV commercials carry NECs latest slogan

Empowered by Innovation.

Siemens Mobile Devices managing director Jonathan Bate said:

We would like to thank Sue Rowe for her contribution over the last 10 years. We are sorry to see her go but she has left to pursue other interests.

Bate denies that Rowe may have been unhappy with Siemens decision to halt and review its marketing spend.

The last six months have been difficult for everyone. But we have finalised our plans for this year and things will start moving again.

Amex will consolidate all telecoms expenses paid for on the

Corporate Card into management information files for finance and purchasing executives who manage corporate expense management.

BTCellnet has endorsed the arrangement. The networks partnership marketing director Gary Stevens said:

The American Express solution eases processing of payment and expense management. We are delighted to be working with

American Express to help our mutual customers maximise their process efficiencies.

A German accessory distributor called More International has set up new UK offices.

Its UK managing director is Barry Colman who formerly worked for Fonerange and the accessory division of defunct Kall.

He says the company plans to target the bigger high street retailers but has no plans to supply to smaller dealers. More was the subject of failed takeover and partnership attempts from Fonerange and more recently Kondor.

Colman told Mobile News.

The UK accessory companies were seeking alliances with overseas distributors to offer a pan-European service. But it hasnt really materialised.

We are one of the first to come in to the UK to do this. We have set up distribution agreements in Germany with the top service providers and retailers and we aim to replicate that success in the UK.

We supply to Hutchison Telecom Carphone Warehouses 110 German Phone House outlets and three or four major retail chains.

There is an opportunity in the UK because we dont have very high overheads.

Ora failed because it didnt have much market share and its sales didnt support its huge overheads. Last year we turned over DM12 million employing just 20 people.

To be successful you need to have your systems and logistics right because margins are low. The cost of running a warehouse in the UK is five times more than in Germany. We have already been in meetings with The Carphone Warehouses European accessory co-ordinator. And we will be talking to other companies. The bigger companies want one product one price.

We are confident we can break into the UK market. It is harder to get a customer than to lose one. People like Dixons group has long standing relationships with suppliers but it cannot rely solely on one supplier.

We will offer a quality alternative. Our expectations are conservative. We will be looking to take a small percentage of volumes from the blue-chip companies.

We wont be catering for the smaller independent dealer market. It is too difficult to value.