The rapid take-up of mobile phones among Britons is forcing Cellnet to increase its workforce by 50% to 4,500 to cope with the demand.

A spokesman for Cellnet said it was likely the new jobs would be added to existing operations in Leeds, Bradford and Doncaster in Yorkshire and at Alness and Thurso in Scotland. However, the opening of new offices is also being considered.

Staff would be recruited across-the-board in customer service, sales, marketing and technology.

Massive take-up

The company announced surging subscriber figures along with the other three UK mobile operators earlier this week. It has seen 479,000 new customers sign up in the first three months of 1999.

1 in 4 Britons now have a mobile phone

Cellnet is the UK's second biggest mobile provider behind Vodafone and has added 1.4m new subscribers over the last year for a total customer base of 4.5m. Industry analysts predict the mobile phone market will double again over the next two years.

Cellnet's managing director, Peter Erskine, said on Tuesday: "If you thought last year was the year of the mobile, be prepared for even more exciting developments during the next few years."

The company is 60%-owned by British Telecom, and it has also announced it is changing its name to BT Cellnet with a £10m advertising campaign to promote the brand. The security and business services group Securicor owns the other 40%.

"Increasingly, customers are demanding communications solutions across voice and data, fixed lines and mobiles, and communications and computing technologies. Cellnet with its link to BT is ideally positioned to provide the mobile piece of the jigsaw," said Kent Thexton, Cellnet marketing director.

Overall mobile phone subscriber numbers in the UK at 31 March were:

• Vodafone 5.57m
• Cellnet 4.52m
• Orange 2.53m
• One-2-One 2.25m