Our Christmas sales proved to succeed both in retail and on the internet you need to provide customers with the lowest prices and the highest standards of service.

Thanks to the huge buying power at talkingshop.co.uk we can take the High Street competition to task on all counts said talkingshop.co.uk managing director Darren Duesbury.

The stockists with the fullest tanks will win!

Participating dealerswill be sent monthly statements once they have registered so they can see exactly how the are progressing.

PNC acquired KJC last July. In addition to his existing responsibilities Ridge will now be in charge of sales marketing and operations across PNCs mobile fixed and internet businesses.

Geremy Thomas remains chief executive of PNC Tele.com.

Since the acquisition of KJC Darren has been an integral part of PNCs management team. The company will benefit from him focusing on the operational core of the business said Thomas.

PNC now has 50 shops including the 30 KJC outlets acquired in July.

Overall the 128 million mobile phones Nokia sold in the year 2000 represented 64 per cent growth from the year before.

In 1999 Nokia sold 78.5 million units worldwide.

According to Nokias preliminary estimates global mobile phone market volume in the year 2000 was approximately 405 million units representing a 45 per cent increase from the previous year.

Market volume for 1999 was estimated at approximately 280 million units.

Nokias preliminary market estimates indicate that the global mobile phone subscriber base had climbed above 700 million users by the end of the year 2000 representing global penetration of approximately 12 per cent.

The Mobilefone Group was started by June Reynolds-Lacey as a retailer of mobile phones and pagers in 1989.

Since then it has grown to be a major player in the UK telecommunications industry with a turnover in excess of over 25 million a year.

Watson (33) has renamed his part of the company VoiceDAT Ltd trading as Voice.

I have been running the mobile phone sales division of the group for the past nine years and do not see much change in the general operation of the new business except for the investment in new software to increase efficiency said Watson.

The sector is buoyant and we have established secure routes to market that we intend to expand.

We have become one of the largest independent outlets for Orange a position we intend to maintain and develop and our web site is fast becoming a major outlet receiving almost one million hits last month.

The companys research and development arm which has pioneered the use of telemetry through its blackBOX innovation will remain under the Mobilefone Groups control along with its National Service Hub in North Warwickshire which is one of only two companies in the UK to provide after sales service and support for Nokia.

Lorraine Swan pleaded guilty to obtaining a Motorola phone and some pre-pay vouchers by deception from the Virgin Shop on December 4.

She also admitted obtaining a quantity of groceries and alcohol from a nearby Sainsburys and attempting to get a 50 cashback.

Plimsoll says 89 per cent of all Mobile Phones companies had some form of debt last year. Only 23 companies showed no debt at all.

Why would almost 54 per cent of the industry add debt last year? Two key reasons seem to be increasing their formal lending.

Companies are financing losses in a bold attempt to keep afloat and stay in the marketplace. For 38 companies borrowing money is a means of staying in business said Plimsoll general manager David Pattison.

In fact these are located and named in the analysis as having taken on more debt last year whilst funding losses.

Companies are investing to become more competitive believing that extra investment in assets will ultimately deliver more profit. Only 78 out of 111 companies or 70 per cent of those adding extra debts increased profits last year.

The research suggests that a typical Mobile Phone company finances on average 17 per of their assets. This statistic however hides the realism that almost 32 per cent of companies have a debt level twice this average.

Plimsoll says the reasons for impending job losses are not connected with recent months of economic uncertainty but go back to fundamental business reasons.

Plimsoll says that for the last three years the cost of employing people has been increasing at a greater rate than the industry can afford.

This is because the cost of salaries has increased by 88 per cent in the last three years yet sales have only risen by 48 per cent.

Eighty per cent of companies are spending more on salaries than they were three years ago. Yet just over half are making more profit says Plimsoll.

The cost of salaries as a function of sales has increased 31 per cent and already a third of the companies are making losses. Further pressure for job cuts will be brought on by next years expected salary increase.

There is strong evidence that at least 57 per cent of the industry will need to shed jobs in the next 12 months. The major players in particular will be exposed. One of these big players could see job cuts of 711 people. There are at least 33 companies in serious financial distress adds the report.

The only hope of survival is that their managers make swift decisions to save the company from demise.

Plimsolls theories are borne out by recent job cuts of 650 people from Vodafone and One2Ones business review which could the networks head count drastically reduced and the downturn in handset manufacturing (see story P4).

Our decision to launch when we had got our offer right rather than participating in the race to be first for the sake of it has been vindicated by the number of WAP users we have attracted over the last few months said One 2 One marketing director Tim Yates.

Most popular sites visited include gaming entertainment news and sports headlines. e-mail have also been extremely popular.

Finnish interactive mobile entertainment developer Codeonline has licensed Virgin Mobile with a mobile phone version of the quiz. Codeonline has already announced a similar deal with both Vodafone and Orange in the UK.

Codeonline will deliver the localised entertainment content supply technical support around the clock and provide live analysis of service usage.

The Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? mobile game works perfectly on SMS and WAP and can provide operators with a compulsive gaming platform says Codeonlines Matti Hamalainen.

When it was launched in Ireland we reached two million questions played in the first six weeks.

The content is designed by Codeonline for each market.