The mobile majority

Orange boss Hans Snook has plenty to talk about

Latest figures from the UK's mobile phone operators have confirmed that those who do not own one are now in the minority.

UK mobile phone subscribers*

Vodafone 9.36m

BT Cellnet 8.07m

Orange 7.2m

One2One 6m

*At 30 June 2000

The country's four operators reported record new subscriber figures for the three months to the end of June.

The best figures came from Orange, the mobile phone group, which France Telecom is buying.

Orange said on Tuesday that it had pulled in 1.2m new customers in the last three months.

The group said its customer base had reached 7.2m by the end of the second quarter of this year - almost two and a half times higher than at the same time last year.

The vast majority of new customers are using pre-pay phones, where there are no monthly charges, with users buying airtime as they go.

More than 980,000 joined the Just Talk pre-pay service which was launched in October. That takes Orange's pre-pay base to more than 4.4 m.

One2One, the smallest of the four mobile phone companies, surprised analysts with news that it had signed up more than 1m new customers in the second quarter.

Analysts had predicted a rise of betweeen 700,000 and 800,000.

One2One, which Deutsche Telekom bought last year, said it had more than 6m customers by the end of last month.

The figures included 325,923 sales in just over seven months achieved by Virgin Mobile, its joint venture with Virgin.

Cellnet takes Wap lead

The second biggest operator, BT Cellnet, said it had pulled in 213,000 new customers in the last three months.

The group said its customer base had reached 8.074m, up from 5.023m at the same time last year.

Of these, 175,000 were sales of Wap-enabled mobiles which allow access to the internet.

The company estimated that it had secured 90% of that market.

BT Cellnet managing director Peter Erskine said: "It is important in such an environment to be first to market to capture these high quality consumers, and puts us in a strong position as the next phase of the mobile market grows."

Vodafone sales surge in Europe

Figures for the world's largest mobile phone company, Vodafone, came in at the low end of forecasts in its home market.

In the face of intense competition, the company signed up 572,000 new UK subscribers comparing with analysts' estimates of 531,000 to 700,000.

However, Vodafone said it had added a record 6.6m customers worldwide in the second quarter as booming sales at Mannesmann's mobile units made up for slowing growth in the UK.

Vodafone saw the strongest growth at D2 in Germany and Omnitel in Italy, highlighting the importance of its recent takeover of Mannesmann.

The two companies, which Vodafone took control of through the takeover added 2.68m and 994,000 customers respectively in the last three months.

That helped make continental Europe Vodafone's fastest growing division, with 4.38m new customers.

Its total subscriber base rose to 59m worldwide, including 32.28m on the continent.