This sums up much of my thinking - I hold a few and swing trade a few and even trade intraday sometimes ......

I think there is a lot of slack that management can cut out of the costs and would also anticipate sector consolidation ..... good value currently and have been holding their own in a falling market. Lot of US interest.

ains


Edited by Dominic White
(Filed: 08/02/2003)


Texting makes MmO2 sexy but it's also risky

More and more Britons are discovering the joys of textual intercourse. In the month of December, we fired off more than 50m mobile messages a day, and next Friday (that's Valentine's Day, folks, in case you'd forgotten) we'll send considerably more than that.



It emerged this week that the chief beneficiary of this craze is MmO2 . BT's former mobile phone division revealed that it gets a higher proportion of revenues from texting than any of the other three operators.

Revenue from messaging grew at its fastest rate ever in the last quarter, up 19pc, and data services as a proportion of MmO2 's revenue rose to 17.7pc from 15.6pc.

More good news was the rise in MmO2 's average revenues per customer. ARPUs, as nerdy analysts like to dub them, grew by 5pc to 243 in the UK and by 9pc in Germany to 212.

MmO2 now has 19.1m subscribers and in Britain it may be the smallest player, with 11.9m users, but it is growing faster than its rivals - testament to the success of its rebranding from BT Cellnet.

Only 114,000 of its 503,000 new UK subscribers were higher-spending contract customers, but MmO2 claims its pre-pay customers have started spending more than before.

Customer growth in Germany, which continues to be dominated by T-Mobile and Vodafone, is less impressive and the MmO2 share price ascribes little or no value to this part of the business.

That seems unfair, given the fact that the group has attracted higher-spending customers and has made a decent fist of turning the operation around. An eventual sale or merger is almost as inevitable as a disposal of the Dutch unit, which is losing customers.

MmO2 's larger rival Vodafone is trading on a free cashflow yield of 6pc, while at 49p this week, MmO2 's equivalent valuation remains negative. It might not have Vodafone's scale or profitability but there is room for upside. A risky buy.

Credit Suisse First Boston upgrades its recommendation on Vodafone Group PLC and downgraded smaller rival mmO2 PLC, dealers said.

Vodafone was upgraded to 'outperform' from 'neutral' by the broker, which kept an unchanged price target of 125 pence. It also downgraded mm02 to 'neutral' from 'outperform', cutting is shareprice target to 50 pence from 75. On mmO2, CSFB worried that the sale of the firm's lossmaking O2 Germany unit could be delayed until 2004 or 2005. This led the broker to cut its breakup valuation to 60 pence per share, to reflect the ongoing drag on free cashflow. It also made a 6.1% downgrade to medium-term EBITDA forecasts, citing recent events including the Oftel decision to lower connection charges.

CSFB thinks the sale of mmO2's German operations will be delayed after the firm signed a deal to pay to T-Mobile 137m to gain the right to roam on T-Mobile's 3G network in Germany in the future. This deal puts mmO2 in a position where it is now prepared to fund the build in Germany to 25% population coverage this year, CSFB reckons.

It believes the firm is under no pressure to sell until it has to provide capital expenditure for a 50% population roll-out, which could be two years away. "A takeover of the whole group also does not look imminent to us," CSFB added. CSFB's moves also follow presentations from both mobile phone companies yesterday at the Cannes GSM conference.

Yesterday in Cannes, mmO2 chief executive David Finch presented on mmO2's current performance and prospects. He reportedly confirmed the firm's target of 10% service revenue growth and 30% EBITDA margin guidance for the UK business in 2004. Finch also told analysts that long term investment levels are expected to be lower than recent history and said that mm02 remains open to all options for its Dutch and German businesses. Goldman Sachs was pleased, saying the presentation "reinforced ...confidence in management's control of the business and its pragmatic approach to mmO2's strategic options - both regarding 3G and consolidation". The US broker reiterated an 'outperform' rating on mmO2 shares and left forecasts unchanged.

Mobile firms 'got off lightly'
By Dominic White (Filed: 24/02/2003) Telegraph

Britain's mobile phone operators, who have been ordered to cut the cost of calls between networks, narrowly escaped more punishing proposals that would have forced them to make an immediate one-off reduction of 50pc.

The Competition Commission last month told the four operators to cut so-called "termination charges" by 15pc with immediate effect, and make similar reductions each year for the next three years.

Operators attacked the proposals as unfair. At least two are preparing to take the commission's investigation to judicial review. Vodafone is expected to file documents in the High Court this week.

It has now emerged that the commission originally proposed an immediate halving of termination charges followed by annual reductions, a move backed by the National Consumer Council.

A one-off cut of such size would have made it hard for operators to adjust their handset subsidies and call prices to compensate for the loss of revenue from termination charges.

A senior source at one of the operators said: "Symbolically, the original proposals would have been worse than the final result." Mobile phone company share prices would have come under huge pressure, he said.

The commission wrote to the four operators - Vodafone, mmO2, Orange and T-Mobile - last summer setting out the plans. This led to a fierce campaign and lobbying of the Government, which got a 22.5 billion windfall from auctioning next generation mobile licences.

Operators are now kicking themselves for going to the commission, after rejecting far less swingeing proposals by Oftel, the telecoms watchdog.

They have two main complaints: the commission's final findings do not take into account the 22.5 billion, and do not specify how fixed-line rivals such as BT should pass on to consumers the reduced charges they will pay to access mobile networks.

If i can get this at 50p i`ll be taking out a massive short, its a no-brainer
Target price 20p

Seems a strange approach - waiting for 50p when they are at 48p .... when you expect 20p .... go for it - short them now and wait for 20p



ains

Ains

I like getting the top
Know what i mean?
I think that they will possibly never see 50p again so i may move soon

Mobile bosses cautious over 3G

By Jane Wakefield
BBC News Online technology staff


Third generation telephone networks have taken a backseat in speeches by the bosses of two of the UK biggest mobile operators.

O2 boss fed up with regulation
The chief executives of both O2 and Orange delivered keynote addresses at the annual 3GSM conference in Cannes last week but neither seemed to have 3G uppermost on their minds.

Peter Erskine, head of O2 used the Cannes platform to complain about recent demands from UK telecoms watchdog Oftel that mobile operators slash the costs of making calls to other networks.

Coupled with European regulatory attempts to reduce the costs of making foreign calls, Mr Erskine said it added up to too much interference in the industry.

Growing up

Describing it as "small picture thinking" Mr Erskine accused the regulators of stifling creativity and competition.

"It is a constant battle between regulators and operators and places us in uncertainty," he said.

It was time, he said, to let mobile firms stand on their own two feet.

"There has been talk of the mobile industry being in its infancy but such comparisons have outlived their usefulness," he said.

Regulation, he said should be "colossally light-touch" and looked to new super regulator to adopt a hand-off approach to the mobile industry.

Sharing networks?

Mr Erskine reaffirmed O2's long-term commitment to 3G, describing the technology as "too extraordinary, too life-enhancing" not to happen,

But he also hinted that the industry was about to go through a period of consolidation with mergers and partnerships.

O2 could favour network-sharing rather than rolling out its own dedicated 3G network, he said.

He said that 3G was no longer a field of dreams adhering to the philosophy that if you built it, users will come.

"Now the attitudes are more pragmatic and led by market demand," he said.

People power


We might suggest ways customers might like to use services but at the end of the day they will be defined and deployed by the street

Jean Francois Pontal, Orange
The new focus on customer demand and need was central to the speech made to the Congress by Orange's outgoing boss Jean Francois Pontal.

He compared the challenges facing the mobile industry as those faced by the music industry, a need to keep a constant eye on what ordinary people were doing.

"The next big thing is here already, in clubs, warehouses and bedrooms," he said.

Despite the best-laid plans of operators to move users to multimedia services, the real decisions will be made at grass-roots level he said.

"We might suggest ways customers might like to use services but at the end of the day they will be defined and deployed by the street," he said.

Old-fashioned voice was likely to remain the core business for mobile operators for the next decade he said.

Mr Pontal admitted that Orange was not at the bleeding edge of 3G rollouts.

"Clearly we won't be first with 3G but it is not about the technology, more what the technology can do for people," he said.

He urged incoming boss Solomon Trujillo to keep his mind fixed on the voice business as the company moved forward.

Technology UK
02/24 23:25
Cell-Phone Prices Drop After Release of New Models, Nikkei Says
By Rajat Bhattacharya


Tokyo, Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- NTT DoCoMo Inc., KDDI Corp., and J. Phone Co. have cut prices for their mobile phones fitted with cameras by as much as 80 percent after a surge in inventories following the release of new models, Nikkei English News reported.

Some cell phone models released last year are on sale for 1 yen, Nikkei said, without citing anyone. Some large retailers are selling KDDI's au-brand video-camera model at 70 percent below the brand's introductory price last year, the report said. KDDI is Japan's second-largest mobile phone operator.

NTT DoCoMo's D251i handsets are selling below 5,000 yen ($42), down 80 percent since they were introduced last July, the newswire said. Models introduced last July by Vodafone Group Plc's J-Phone Co. are selling between 1 yen and 100 yen, it said.

Retailers are providing price discounts on older models to avoid larger inventories, Nikkei said. Cellular services are promoting the discounts because they want to generate revenue from image and data communication services, the report said.

by Ian Keene

Tuesday 25 February 2003

Will Wi-Fi eclipse the promise of 3G?



3G was so over-hyped, and expectations were built so high, it could only disappoint. Now the same thing is happening to Wi-Fi. But behind the hype there are real applications for each technology the difficult part is identifying what to use the technology for and when to start doing it.

The wireless and mobile market had its ups and downs last year, but it has progressed slightly.

Wireless Fidelity emerged unexpectedly, prompting rapid growth in equipment sales and a proliferation of wireless Lan hotspots.

Cellular networks eventually evolved to GPRS (2.5G), and multimedia messaging service (MMS) hit the market. But GPRS has not been successful so far, because it is expensive and is disappointing in terms of bandwidth, reliability and roaming support.

It will be hard for mobile operators to justify the cost of building 3G networks until their 2.5G services succeed. They are banking on a
good year for wireless data but voice will remain the industrys mainstay in 2003.

Operators believe faster networks will bring an uptake in data services, but complex pricing and PC-like applications that operate poorly on small handset screens will limit growth. Bar some early technology adopters, enterprise users will wait until 2004 to adopt mobile data services.

In the consumer market, MMS and picture video services will be the surprise success story of 2003. While mobile operators strive for success with 2.5G networks, 3G will see more delays.

The strength of wireless networks is that they enable business users to fill information shadows. An enterprise cannot be real-time if staff are inaccessible when new information emerges, or information is inaccessible when staff need it. But wireless networks must accommodate a mix of applications, from high frequency use/low bandwidth to low frequency use/high bandwidth.

Enterprises must compromise between speed, ubiquity and cost. The differences in Wi-Fi, 2.5G and 3G in these areas will determine where they are used and for what. Services will be effective only where they achieve the right match of technology, application and device type.

While 2.5G services are approaching ubiquitous coverage and work well for short messages, when used for PC office applications such as e-mail with file attachments, they are slow and expensive. Moving to 3G will be an improvement but it will still fall far short of a low-cost broadband service.

Wi-Fi hotspots can provide the high bandwidth and low costs per megabyte needed for PC applications. But despite the growing number of WLans in offices and at public hotspots, they will be available in few locations relative to the coverage of cellular networks.
WLans are on a roll, with Wi-Fi-certified products providing interoperability from a wide range of suppliers. Prices are low and Wi-Fi will increasingly be built into, or at least bundled with, many new notebook and PDA purchases during 2003, reaching 80% of all commercial notebooks by 2005. Demand for wireless internet access in the home, office and in public places will therefore grow rapidly.

Large, financially stable telecoms operators are displacing wireless start-ups as Wi-Fi hotspot infrastructure owners. With simple precautions and an eye on emerging security standards, enterprises can now safely and productively adopt WLan for mobile staff.

Issues with roaming from one hotspot provider to another will remain throughout most of 2003 and most hotspot users will adopt a pay-as-you-go model.

Businesses must build a policy on Wi-Fi use and communicate it to their staff. You can no longer ignore
Wi-Fi and you need to take security measures even if you do not intend to use it.

There is no single wireless technology that meets all business needs, so you must match the applications to the service. Articulate a Wi-Fi usage policy now, address the security issues and investigate where this technology can bring you tangible benefits.

See whether current GPRS services meet your needs. Test the network do not take advertised capabilities at face value. Meanwhile, wait for 3G to mature, coverage to expand and prices to stabilise.

Ian Keene is vice-president at Gartner Research

25 Feb 2003 17:07 GMT

KPN, mm02 scrap 3G linkup plans

AMSTERDAM, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Dutch telecoms group KPN KPN.N said on Tuesday it and British mobile phone operator mm02 had scrapped tentative plans to join forces in building a third generation network in the Netherlands.
KPN spokesman Marinus Potman said the two phone operators had previously signed a memorandum of understanding to explore cooperating on the rollout of third-generation mobile networks in the Netherlands, but had since decided not to go ahead.

"We signed a memorandum of understanding to explore the possibility for combined activity for 3G in the Netherlands. We came to the conclusion it wouldn't bring much synergy so we stopped the operation," Potman told Reuters.

Mm02 is active in the Netherlands through its unit 02.

KPN was not seeking an alternative partner and expected to go it alone in building the network, Potman said, adding that the Dutch company still expected to begin rolling out UMTS services in Germany by the end of 2003, as previously announced.

Mobile madness makes UK WAP happy
10:45 Friday 28th February 2003
Reuters


The troubled mobile phone companies will be laughing all the way to the bank if handset data usage continues to grow at the current rate
British mobile users downloaded 524 million Internet pages to their phones in January, jumping by a quarter on December figures, as sales of new handsets and marketing of services increased interest in cell-phone surfing.

The daily average of 17 million compares with 13.5 million in December and 12 million in November, and coincided with the sale over Christmas of hundreds of thousands of new phones geared to make mobile gaming and Internet access simpler.

Like rivals in other countries, Britain's four operators -- Vodafone, Orange, mmO2 and T-Mobile -- are very keen to increase the amount of money they earn from non-voice services.

The Mobile Data Association (MDA) said there were now around 25 million Internet-enabled mobile handsets in Britain, and it expects to see a total of eight billion wireless application protocol (WAP) page impressions this year.

The most popular services included downloads of ringtones and screensavers, with demand for games rising, the MDA said.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Text/SMS messaging totally insecure

Canary sings, "I can read your texts"

By Tony Dennis: Friday 28 February 2003, 10:41


A LITTLE BIRD working for one of the major British GSM operators has revealed to us just how insecure the whole text/SMS messaging service really is.
In order to offer SMS (Short Message Service) - otherwise known as texting - operators install an SMSC (Short Message Service Centre). Many of these SMSCs come from software specialists such as LogicaCMG or Schlumberger SEMA.

In essence, an SMSC is like a giant store-and-forward email server.

Our canary maintains that the typical time a text message stays stored on the SMSC is around 15 days. Worryingly our bird says that text messages can actually be viewed by ANY customer services advisor. " There's no password or permissions or anything," the canary adds.

"Many advisors amuse themselves on slow days by picking numbers at random and reading the messages, and then following the trail to the sender and jumping from person to person like this. It's also possible to spoof text messages through the [SMSC], and make them look like they've come from anywhere or anyone, just like with email."

More to the point if a member of the public does want to take some sort of action regarding a nuisance SMS, the operator does genuinely possess the ability to interrogate the SMSC and discover all the requisite information.

Most operators won't actually admit this to the public, as it could easily generate masses of customer complaints which would be unprofitable to pursue. The good news, however, is that if you ask the customer services department of your mobile phone company very nicely indeed, they will reveal the number for a nuisance calls bureau which can investigate SMS complaints too. So now you know.

OOM outperforming sector and market on lowish volumes - up 1.05%


ains



3G network may carry adult video

Richard Wray
Monday March 3, 2003
The Guardian

The "launch" party for Britain's newest mobile phone network, 3, will be a very mute affair this evening in keeping with the company's low-key roll-out

ADVERTISEMENT

strategy - the public cannot yet buy the phones.

Insiders say, however, that the company's soft launch may have a hard core.

The network will draw attention to what it sees as the big advantage of its 3G technology over the traditional four British networks - the ability to download, view and even send video images.

The company has already made extensive use in its advertising of its agreement with the FA Premier League, that allows it to provide video highlights of games.

But 3 has so far been reluctant to talk about other content which insiders say it has also considered making available over its network: pornography.

Insiders who worked with 3 in the run-up to its soft launch said that the company has streamed hours of pornographic material over its network. One technician who worked with BBC Technology, which 3 has contracted to deal with its video content, said the company has obviously investigated adult services.

"There was quite a lot of sex and that caused a few eyebrows to be raised at the BBC, with questions about can we really process this?" he said.

But a spokesman for 3 refused to comment on whether the company has any designs on making adult services available over its network.

He did admit that every mass media market -such as video, publishing and the internet - has tended to attract pornographers. "We are assuming that in the long run 3G will be no different," he said.

Prospective customers have been able to sign up for 3's service for just over a week. But the company has yet to fulfil any of those orders which may be delayed for several weeks.

Its three UK high street stores also recently opened for business, allowing people to see the new technology, which 3 will be retailing through selected branches of Carphone Warehouse, Dixons, Phones4U and The Link.

But while the last big launch in the British mobile phone industry - Vodafone Live - involved a gala bash, 3 is keeping itself under wraps.

PARIS (AFX) - Orange SA said it plans to increase the price of SMS messages containing games and chat, but said the price of SMS text messages sent between its customers will remain unchanged.
A report in today's La Lettre de L'Expansion said the company is considering increasing prices for SMS messages from the end of March.

"We have not planned an increase in SMS tariffs," said a spokesperson for the company, who added that SMS messages containing games and chat will be charged as an 'added value' service from the end of March.

These messages are currently charged at the same price as text messages.

They account for around 5 pct of Orange's total number of messages sent, or 3 bln eur in 2002, according to the spokesperson.

paris@afxnews.com

11:02 Monday 10th March 2003
Reuters


Handset sales were up 6 percent in 2002, beating analysts' estimates by several million - and Nokia remains the market leader
An end-of-year buying spree by consumers lifted sales of mobile phones well above forecasts in 2002, a research group said on Monday, adding that it expects even stronger growth in 2003.

A total of 423 million handsets were sold to consumers in 2002, up 6 percent from 400 million units in 2001 and several million more than forecast, said Gartner Dataquest.



Market shares of the five key players changed little from the third quarter, with Finland's Nokia still firmly in the lead and selling more than twice the number of handsets than its nearest competitor, Motorola. However, Nokia no longer gained market share over its smaller rivals.

"We've seen phenomenal growth in countries like Germany and the Asia Pacific region," said Gartner analyst Ben Wood. Growth, especially in mature markets, was driven by consumers who replaced their old handsets with new ones earlier than expected.

Subsidies by mobile operators, crucial to push consumers into getting a new phones, was similar to previous quarters, meaning that the attractiveness of new products and the marketing were behind the sales increase, Wood said.

"We expect growth will increase, to perhaps 10 (percent) to 15 percent this year," Wood said. It would be the first double-digit percentage growth year since 2000 when sales climbed some 50 percent to more than 400 million but then stagnated.

To maintain growth rates phone makers are focusing more on replacement sales because many consumers already have a phone -- some one billion people around the world now use a mobile phone. This means manufacturers need to offer new features to give consumers a reason to ditch their old device.

Although a lot of attention is being paid to new colour screens and camera phones, most of the year-end sales surge was in basic handsets, which now contain more features than before, such as voice dialing and musical ring tones.

"The advent of new handsets with cameras and colour screens has encouraged people to go to the shops where they found that low-end phones also have a lot of features," Wood said.

He warned that operators were preparing to cut phone subsidies, which could hurt sales in 2003.

Nokia's fourth-quarter market share was 36.8 percent, barely changed from 36.9 percent in the year-ago period. It ended 2002 with a 35.8 percent share, up from 35 percent in 2001.

Wood said operators were increasingly concerned about Nokia's dominance. "They're looking at other handset makers to close the gap," he said.

Gartner measures sales to end-users, while rival market researchers, which have published 2002 statistics several weeks ago, measure shipments into the sales channel.

Motorola had a fourth-quarter share of 15.6 percent, versus 14.7 percent in the year-ago period, while its full-year share was 15.3 percent versus 14.8 percent the previous year.

Industry No. 3 Samsung stalled in the fourth quarter compared with the third, as the South Korean government halted shipments in an effort to stop all phone subsidies, but it still ended 2002 with a 9.8 percent market share, up from 7.1 percent in 2001.

Germany's Siemens, overtaken by Samsung last year, also continued to grow, ending the year at 8.2 percent versus 7.4 percent in 2001.

Japenese-Swedish partnership Sony Ericsson, whose full-year market share dwindled further to 5.5 percent from 6.7 percent, turned the corner in the fourth quarter by reversing the long string of quarter-on-quarter declines.

Sounds like a good revenue earner - shares leading the top 100 risers intraday





Tuesday March 11, 09:08 AM




MmO2 to trial music-over-mobile service

LONDON (Reuters) - Mobile phone operator mmO2 has said it will start testing a new system in May that will allow customers to download chart hits over its mobile network.


With brand partner MTV, owned by Viacom , and music groups including Bertelsmann's BMG providing the tunes, mmO2 said the quality of the sound would be similar to existing MP3 digital music ADVERTISEMENT

players.


The trial, which will run on digital music players made by Germany's Siemens , fits into mmO2's strategy to boost the amount of money its earns from customers by selling them new, multimedia services on top of voice phone calls.


"It is also good news for record companies, who want to find new mass-market sales channels," Kent Thexton, chief marketing and data officer of mmO2 , said in a statement.


Free 30-second samples should download in about 12 seconds, while full songs would take about 90 seconds, mmO2 said. The trials will start in May in Britain and Germany and are expected to lead to a launch later this year, it added.

sector taking a hit this morning in a down market but oom outperforming at this time



O2 to offer chart hits via mobile phones
Tuesday, March 11 10:02:26

(BizWorld)

Mobile operator mmO2, which owns O2 in Ireland, will shortly begin trials shortly of a new music-over-mobile service using GPRS technology.

The new music service will enable customers to select, retrieve and store the latest chart hits via their GPRS-enabled mobile handset onto a specially designed digital music player.
The trials, starting in May in the UK and Germany, are expected to lead to the launch of a commercial service later this year and would be available in Ireland soon after.


The music will be provided by MTV and will include both the UK and European top 20 hits. Customers will need a digital music player, similar to the existing MP3 player, which can be plugged in to the mobile handset. The customer then selects a track and chooses either to hear a free 30-second clip or purchase the entire track. The digital music player can be unclipped from the mobile handset and used as a regular personal music device.

"Customers researched were very enthusiastic about the service with 76pc of 16-24 year olds expressing a strong interest. It is also good news for record companies, who want to find new mass-market sales channels," said Kent Thexton, marketing officer with mmO2.

With around 19 million customers, mmO2 has secured 3G licences in Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands, and Germany.

Still gaining ground and nearly 5% up against 1% for the sector and about half that for the market


O2 to start 'music over mobile' trials

London, March 11 2003, (netimperative)



by Chris Lake

Wireless network operator mmO2 is to begin trials of its 'music over mobile' service in May, in conjunction with MTV and BMG, giving subscribers the chance to download tracks to a specially designed digital music player.


The Siemens-designed player can be connected to a GPRS-enabled handset in order to download songs, which will be provided by major record labels including BMG. The trial will help determine potential pricing, though it is expected that charges will go directly onto users' phone bills.

After songs have been downloaded, subscribers can disconnect the device from their handset and use it as a portable music player. Downloads will take about 90 seconds and the O2-branded digital music player will hold around 100 tracks on a memory card - users have the option of transferring tracks to a PC or purchasing additional memory cards to increase storage.

O2 claims this will be "the world's first music over mobile service" and aims to launch it commercially later in the year, subject to customer feedback from the trial, which will determine what kind of service they want and how much they are prepared to pay for it.

The trials will start in May in the UK and Germany. MTV will provide O2 with a range of music charts, which users can access through a specially-designed interface.

Initial research conducted by O2 suggests that more than three-quarters of 16-24 year olds have a "strong interest" in a wireless music service.

O2 said the service is "good news for record companies, who want to find new mass-market sales channels".

4 February 2003: Multimedia services boost O2

rumours of possibe m+a on german sub

Tue 11 Mar 2003


LONDON (SHARECAST) - Shares in mobile phone company mmO2 rose as it said it was keeping all its options open with regards to its Dutch business, and is estimating cost cuts of 1.2bn at the German unit through partnership deals over ten years.

Supermarket shares moved upwards as both Wm Morrison and Sainsbury's await news of the OFT's conclusions on the bid battle for Safeway. A decision is expected by the end of the month.


FTSE 100 - Risers

mmO2 (OOM) 43.00p +2.38%
Cost cutting measures at German unit through partnership deals

Video games and photos push mobile sales to 50m
By Robert Uhlig, Technology Correspondent
(Filed: 11/03/2003)


The mobile phone has cemented its position as Britain's most widely used gadget, with more than 50 million now in use.

Barely a household in Britain is not equipped with a mobile, according to the latest industry figures. They show that 49,860,000 mobile phone owners were registered at the end of last year.

With new subscribers joining at the rate of 100,000 a month, the 50 million mark was probably passed a month ago - more than two phones on average for every household.

With a population of around 59 million, Britain would appear to be virtually at saturation point, but the statistics hide the fact that a substantial number of Britons now have two or more mobile phones.


Youngsters in particular are driving the sales, attracted by features such as photo-messaging, e-mails, mobile video games and other fancy extras.

With the first of the so-called third generation of mobile phone service to be launched this month by 3, the report's authors predict our obsession with mobile phones can grow only more intense.

Already analysts are predicting that within a few years, more people could be watching the news or sports highlights on their mobile phones than on television.

The report by Continental Research paints a revealing picture of Britain's love affair with mobile phones. Back in 1990, there were just over a million users but sales blossomed in the late Nineties when firms introduced pre-pay handsets.

These allowed people - particularly children - who would not have passed credit checks to buy a mobile phone for the first time. It also meant parents could keep control over their children's mobile phone bills. They supplied them with pre-paid cards and their children remained safely contactable.

Today, more than two thirds of British mobiles are pre-paid, while a third are on contract, usually monthly bills, many of which are owned by businesses. One in five mobile owners is aged 15-24, a similar number are aged 25-34, but not all users are young - nearly one in 10 subscribers is 65 or older.

The report scotches the myth that women spend more time on the phone,at least in the realm of mobile communications.

It found men spend around 21 a month, while the average woman pays bills of around 16 a month.

Only four per cent of mobile owners have photo messaging but it has become the most wanted new feature, with around 14 per cent saying they will get it next time they upgrade their handset.