Completion will take place on August 31. The transaction will result in Thales owning all of the issued share capital of GT. European Telecom will use the money to reduce debt. The company racked up 27 million losses in the last 12 months (Mobile News July 9).

Global Telematics was formed in 1997 as a joint venture between Thales and European Telecom.

A condition of the deal is that European Telecom gets 22.5 per cent of any sale proceeds of over 6 million if Thales sells on Global Telematics within two years. The disposal of Global Telematics is part of European Telecoms strategy to sell off all its businesses not related to the distribution and fulfilment of cellular equipment.

Global Telematics supplies telematics solutions and services under its Orchid brand in the UK South Africa and Australia. The venture lost 7.7 million in the last year. European Telecom shouldered a 3.9 million share of that loss.

European Telecom group managing director David McKinney said:

We are pleased to have reached agreement with Thales on the future ownership of GT allowing ET to focus on its core business. The terms of the disposal provide an opportunity for ET to benefit from any disposal of GT over the next three years.

European Telecom tried to float Global Telematics on the stock exchange last December. But the offering was pulled at the last minute due to adverse market conditions.

Thales is involved in aerospace defence and information technology and services. The group employs 65000 people worldwide and operates in nearly 50 countries.

The contracts are for the supply of cases cords chargers fascias and hands-free kits.

Ora says the contract is bigger than a recent win of a 4 million deal to supply The Carphone Warehouse with accessories.

Ora has been supplying The Carphone Warehouse for around 12 years.

It says most messages have a sex theme with 71 million flirty and romantic messages being sent each week. Around 63 million jokes are forwarded and 60 million messages are sent to make social arrangements according to the report.

Half of all text messages are sent by the 15 to 24 year age group indicating the age bias of texting.

Women are much more likely to send sexy texts than men – 43 million a week as opposed to just 28 million from men. Men may be distracted by texting the four million a week sport updates to their mates compared to just one million by women says Continental Research.

The report says there has been a decrease in the average monthly mobile bill because of more low-spending pre-pay users and falling call charges.

Average mobile bill sizes reduce with age and fall particularly sharply after the age of 55 says Continentals report.

Contract customers account for 55 per cent up from 47.6 per cent while total connections grew by over 18 per cent compared to the same period last year.

We are in a strong position to succeed in a pan-European marketplace that is in significant change said CEO Charles Dunstone.

Commercial director Andrew Harrison is now UK chief executive and financial director Frank McHugh is now chief operating officer of the UK company.

Both report to Carphone Warehouse Group chairman and chief executive Charles Dunstone.

Harrison now oversees all UK trading including retail on-line purchasing logistics repairs and customer services.

McHugh joined the company as financial director from Tandy in January 1999 and will be responsible for UK finance IT warehousing distribution and human resources.

Commented Charles Dunstone:

These appointments strengthen our management team significantly to ensure these opportunities are embraced.

Johnson had been with The Carphone Warehouse since 1989.

He still retains his 10 per cent shareholding.

The margins in our industry are getting tighter but this is a particularly pleasing result given millions of investment in new premises new technology and developments overseas. We have made medium and long-term investment decisions whilst still producing acceptable profitability in the short term said chairman and chief executive John Caudwell.

Caudwell said 100 million worth of shares would be released to senior managers who stayed with the Group.

The market is getting tighter. The challenge now is to provide the best possible content and added value to a consumer market that continuously looks for the new and innovative.

Caudwell ruled out a stock market flotation in the immediate future.

We are able to finance virtually every new development from cash. But if an absolutely un-missable acquisition or growth opportunity comes along that will take more money than we have access to then I will consider flotation said Caudwell who owns 96.5 per cent of the company.

The policies will be backed by insurance underwriters Trenwick.

Fonecare for pre-pay costs 24.99 for a years cover including theft mechanical breakdown and loss.

Post-pay Fonecare costs 49.99 and covers theft damage mechanical breakdown and airtime abuse up to 500.

And Hunn says only 500 Bluetooth companies will survive by 2003 out of 2400 members of the Bluetooth special interest group which is responsible for setting standards and promoting interoperability across all communications.

To ensure success companies should guarantee their products are interoperable with other manufacturers technologies easy to use and sensible claims Hunn.

Bluetooth is about everyday solutions not science fiction. Bluetooth has been a real buzzword for the past couple of years. Its not surprising that so many companies want a piece of the action.

The problem is that most of these companies have a computing or telecoms background and very little expertise or experience in radio frequency technology or software he concludes.

Virgin Mobile enjoyed its most successful quarter ever adding 370618 customers in Q4. Virgin and O2s figures for the quarter were up on their Q3 connections.

T-Mobile Orange and Vodafones connections were all down compared to Q3 however as the total number of net new subscribers during Q4 remained just shy of 1.5 million. Oranges customer base swelled by 252000 customers taking its total to 13.3 million.

Vodafones total customer base increased by 267000 to 13.2 million. However Vodafones active customer base shrunk by one per cent to 96 per cent.

This means Vodafones active customer base stands at just 12166000 – a net increase of 116000 subscribers for the quarter.

All four networks plus Virgin Mobile added almost five million customers during 2002. The total number of active mobile subscribers has reached almost 50 million in the UK.

Vodafone had the best year for connections with 1.1 million new customers.

T-Mobile pipped its MVNO partner Virgin with more than a million new customers in 2002.

But Virgin will be happy that it beat both Orange and O2. Its 938000 new customers exceeded the 925000 picked up by Orange and O2s 877000.

O2 claimed text message usage increased by 21 per cent over the previous quarter with 1.5 billion messages sent. O2 also claimed it now has more than 200000 active GPRS subscribers and 100000 customers using Java games and multi-media messaging (MMS) services.

O2 said data revenue has grown to 17.4 per cent of total service revenue up from 15.3 per cent.

Vodafone also noted a rise in data revenue at 16 per cent for the quarter up from 13.8 per cent.

Orange reported a data revenue increase from 11.2 per cent in 2001 to 14.3 per cent in 2002.