The promotion entitled everyone buying a mobile phone on any network in the run up to Christmas to a free Party Anthems CD. At the end of the CD customers learned whether or not they had won. Pouland bought the winning mobile phone and CD from the Arndale Centre store in Manchester.

The Carphone Warehouses new management team introduce themselves to shareholders. OK … were making that bit up. But for those of you who didnt join 4500 people at CPWs Hollywood-themed Ball on October 20 this is the kind of celluloid fantasy you missed.

For its European Trusted Brands Survey 2001 Readers Digest surveyed 17027 people in 18 European countries including Central and Eastern Europe.

Respondents were asked to name their most trusted brands in 18 sectors.

For the mobile phone category Nokia scored 37 per cent share of the UK vote. In joint second place were Orange and Motorola with 12 per cent each. Vodafone and Ericsson were joint third with 10 per cent each.

Around 85 per cent of respondents gave Nokia four or five out of five for quality.

Respondents were drawn from the Readers Digest database of 5.4 million Europeans. A total of 17027 questionnaires were returned with 1024 coming from the UK.

According to the survey the top eight brands in Europe were Nokia (mobile phones) sony (hi fi – and audio) Nivea (cosmetics and skincare) Canon (cameras) Colgate (toothpaste) IBM (computers) Ariel (soap powder) and LOreal (hair care).

Nokia has a tremendous share in the market. We want to get some share from them. We are becoming more confident with our product line-up. People are becoming very familiar with the brand due to sponsorship and advertising. SL45 and S45 are desirable products and meet the latest technical requirements. The C45 will be heavily promoted by Siemens network operators and retailers before Christmas said Bate.

The C45 will be up there against the likes of the Nokia 3330. We are looking forward to a successful Christmas. We have full order books for the product.

Siemens C45 is the first Siemens phone with fully interchangeable front and back fascias and customisable software. Users can create fully personalised CLIPit covers and download ringtones screensavers and bitmapped images from a new Siemens website at www.my-siemens.com/city.

Siemens will share revenue from downloaded ringtones and bitmapped images with network operators and retailers. For launch Siemens says hundreds of ringtones will be available including music from the charts.

The C45 is the first Siemens handset to support EMS enhanced messaging which allows users to attach pictures and ringtones to text messages. Ericsson and Nokia have already introduced EMS-compatible handsets in to the market.

Siemens will be adding other products to the range. In the coming months C45 will be joined by SL45i SL42 S40 and SX45. SL45i is an updated version of the SL45i MP3 phone running Java. Siemens says it is working with over 200 developers to develop Java location based services information and games applications before the launch of SL45i. SL42 will be a version of the SL45 without an MP3 player and pitched at a significantly lower price point. S40 is the Bosch-developed tri-band phone compatible with high-speed data.

TAP will include leaflets promoting MEND in the packaging of its accessory products.

This will allow TAP customers to register their mobile phones with the MEND system at preferential rates. Registration can be done on the internet or by telephone.

MEND is based in Gloucestershire. It allows people to register their equipment by make model IMEI and serial number.

Finders of lost equipment can either use a free phone number or a web site to instigate the return of the property to its owner.

The MEND system has been designed with the assistance of the police major transport organisations and the insurance industry.

Recipero says it will have more than 50000 users registered on the database by the end of the year.

In a similar move key and bike recovery company Tag-It Finder Systems has launched a Tag-It Phone-Finder Voucher.

The voucher can be purchased for around 25p and assures the finder of the lost item of a 5 reward.

Over one million Tag-Its in all forms have been supplied with customers as diverse as Iveco Ford to Anadin pain relief tablets.

The eight-week promotion gives customers the chance to win thousands of daily calling credit prizes and enter them into two prize draws to win 5000 worth of holiday vouchers.

In addition to giving two customers 5000 worth of holiday vouchers each Vodafones E-TopUp promotion features 120000 calling credit prizes of 1 to 25.

Each time a Vodafone customer uses an E-TopUp facility they will have a one in six chance of winning one of the calling credit prizes which will be automatically credited to their account. Winners of credit will be informed via a text message within 36 hours while anybody winning the holiday voucher will be telephoned.

The promotion which is designed to raise awareness of the service and highlight its benefits will be supported in store with a comprehensive POS package including leaflets posters and till displays. This will be accompanied by a direct marketing campaign to both existing and new customers.

E-TopUp was launched by Vodafone last July. Already more than 4.2 million Vodafone Pay as you Talk customers have a card which can be used in any one of 25000 outlets nationwide.

The terminals are located in Vodafone Stores many convenience stores major High Street retailers and selected garages.

Since first introducing E-TopUp in the UK Vodafone has continued to roll out the service – currently at the rate of 1000 outlets per week – and it is expected that eventually E-TopUp will easily be the favoured method of crediting pre-pay phones.

Genie says in March it generated 63 million web page impressions globally and 89 million WAP impressions in the UK.

The portal is being used by FHM magazine to allow readers to vote by WAP for the countries sexiest women (see White Lines).

The figure comes from research carried out by external company E-Satisfy which used electronic learning software to monitor and analyse voice and data calls to the customer call centre.

The Association says it now expects the total number of GSM users to exceed 630 million worldwide by the end of the year. GSM is in use in more than 171 countries while around 55 GPRS networks are commercially deployed around the world.

The total digital wireless market is expected to reach one billion customers by year end said GSM chief executive Rob Conway.

The challenges ahead are no less dramatic than those of the past and we can only meet them through co-operation and collaboration. More than 80 per cent of the worlds digital wireless carriers that have made 3G technology choices have declared that their future will be in 3GSM deployments said Conway.

By the end of this year more than 630 million wireless consumers will have chosen todays GSM technology. This is a number that can only increase with the proliferation of commercial GPRS EDGE and 3GSM services.

The GSM Association consists of 574 second and third-generation wireless network operators and key manufacturers and suppliers.

Membership of the GSM Association spans 171 countries worldwide.

The GSM Association also says around three quarters of a billion text messages were being sent every day globally by the end of September. The Association says the daily texting rate will regularly top one billion when the impact of internet-to-mobile messaging services is included.

Early forecasts for the end-of-year Holiday Season and New Year period – a peak time for text traffic – estimate that six billion mobile-to-mobile messages will be sent during this time one for every person on the planet the GSM Association states.

As use has exploded so too has the range of applications. Sports results betting services lottery-style games and financial services have all taken to SMS. Nevertheless straightforward person-to-person texting still accounts for the bulk of the traffic and has led to the development of a unique language that is now part of a global youth culture.

Kids in places like Australia and New Zealand are using the same shortcuts and word formations as the kids in the UK and Europe. SMS has helped create a new global language says Conway.

The text craze is strongest in Europe with the Scandinavian countries to the fore but other parts of the world are catching on fast.

The Far East Australia and New Zealand are all seeing rapid rises in SMS take-up says the Association.

SMS has had far greater and faster take-up in the youth market and even in the business community than e-mail experienced. E-mail was invented 30 years ago and required more than 20 years to achieve widespread adoption compared to the three-year gestation of SMS adds the Association.

Formation says messages on billing statements can drive up customer revenue.