This was due to the acquisition last year of Hutchisons Cellnet and Vodafone customer base for 14 million and the 3.2 million acquisition of the UK customer base of

Newgate Communications.

The company says that its operating profit last year increased from 2.4 million to 6.3 million.

Turnover on Project Telecoms retail services arm (pre-pay phones electronic and printed top-up vouchers and pre-pay transactions) increased 10 per cent to 242 million.

In our first full year as a listed company we have demonstrated that our business model is robust and that the management team has the strategy skills and focus to deliver excellent and sustained financial performance chief executive Tim Radford said in a statement.

Our continuing strategy is to take advantage of the growth in demand for telecommunications services and develop Project Telecom as a virtual network operator leveraging off our independence in the marketplace and supplying our customers with impartial advice and a wide range of services from a variety of network operators Radford added.

New corporate accounts won last year included Sodexho Northern Foods Arriva and DowChemical.

The company has been making mobile phones for the last 15 years in Japan. It confirmed it would also be making colour-screen third-generation mobile phones for the European market as network operators roll out 3G networks.

The deal is the first big order Your Comms has picked up north of the border.

Your Comms had to tender to get the account which will see the phones connected to Vodafone.

Fife Council will have access to the billing details of each user and be able to use online systems to optimise the best available tariffs.

The mobile version of The Weakest Link will be available for both WAP and SMS phones.

The WAP version offers an enhanced graphical experience and dynamic banking while the SMS version is a simplified text-only version of the game.

Orange has bought the rights to the SMS version of The Weakest Link in the UK for an exclusive period enhancing the portfolio of games already available to Orange customers across SMS and WAP.

Fergus Lynch UK games manager for Orange said:

Orange continues to expand as both a developer and publisher with access to a range of internal and external content.

The addition of the SMS version of The Weakest Link to our portfolio will give Orange customers a thrilling interactive version of the hit game show in the palm of their hand he added.

The system gives real-time information on the progress of vehicles.

The system will be used this summer by a Vodafone fleet of buses which will each be equipped with a GPS receiver that will continually update and transmit the buses progress around town via Vodafones GPRS service.

Staff waiting for the buses can access the information on their PCs or will be able to send a text message to a Vodafone shortcode number which will text them back with bus details.

The system recognises the callers bus stop location and shortcode and sends information on the sequence of buses on the way.

Vodafone UKs property director Mike Newens said:

Vodafone is determined to help ease the traffic problems by innovative and practical solutions to help staff out of their cars.

The UK average daily figure for messages sent across the four UK GSM network operators is now

45 million compared to 29.9 million last January close to an average of one message per person per day.

Following year-on-year growth from December 2000 at 24.4 million to 42 million in December 2001 this daily figure is forecast to exceed 60 million a month by the end of 2002 according to MDA predictions.

Text messaging enjoyed steady growth throughout last year reaching an annual total of 12.2 billion.

The MDA says this boom looks set to continue throughout 2002 with the January activity providing a kick-start.

The number of New Year text messages recorded between midnight and 3am was around 64 million – almost double the figure twelve months earlier.

The traditional exchange of poems on Scotlands Burns Night extended to the text-set this year has also contributed to the record January figure.

The increase in text messaging can be attributed to its growing popularity across a variety of markets – not just leisure.

A recent study commissioned by the MDA found 80 per cent of executives now converse regularly via SMS (see White Lines).

She is Virginia Kingston who is now the companys fifth dealer manager and the first for the London area.

EBS chairman Ray Kingston said:

London is an area where we arent particularly strong. It is a difficult area with T-Mobile being very strong so we have appointed Virginia to try and persuade more dealers to offer Orange. Since arriving in London she has signed up 13 dealers so we are very happy.

Virginia Kingston Ray Kingstons niece was previously an account manager based in EBSs Northampton head office.

This is up 6 million from 2001s 10 million TV brand advertising budget. Caudwell Group says Phones 4U is now the UKs fastest-growing mobile phone retailer and operates from 260 stores. This is an increase on its 100 stores in 2000.

Certain sections of the populations were hardest hit. Londoners were over twice as likely to have had their phones stolen than mobile users in the rest of the UK.

Most likely victims are teenagers while 11 per cent of the 15-24 age group had their phones stolen.

In addition to having thieves relieve them of their handsets 600000 people dropped their mobiles down the loo 400000 dropped it in a drink and 200000 found they had accidentally put it through the washing machine says the Continental report.

Also 2.9 million people broke their phones 1.6 million simply lost them and 1.3 million dialled 999 by mistake.

Continental Research agreed that mobile usage has almost reached saturation point among younger age groups.

Among 15-24 year olds 82 per cent are now using a mobile phone. Among the over-65s only 33 per cent use a mobile phone.

The limited growth in overall mobile ownership and lack of change in the profile of mobile users indicates that the market is rapidly maturing.

Replacement purchases will now be of greater importance than first-time purchases said James Myring senior research executive at

Continental Research.

We achieved exceptional results in 2001 with sales peaking at 2 million said mobileshop.com managing director Ian McCall.

Mobileshop.com started trading in 1999 and says it recorded 400 per cent growth in its first year. The companys results also show a 51 per cent increase in visitors to the site during October to December.