[delinquentwoody]

Richard Wray
Friday April 15, 2005
The Guardian

Charles Dunstone, the chief executive of Carphone Warehouse, warned yesterday that unless Britain's mobile phone operators throw their marketing weight behind 3G technology this year, new operator 3 will run away with the market.

Europe's largest independent mobile phone retailer yesterday said it expected its annual profits to be at the top end of expectations. In calculating its figures, Carphone was not counting on a big pick-up in sales of handsets incorporating the new technology, which enables video calling and fast downloading of music and video clips.

But Mr Dunstone, who founded the business in 1989, said yesterday: "If you want my personal opinion I think 3G will go mad in the second half of the year."

He said 3, which is owned by Hong-Kong based conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa, has done well to grab more than 3 million customers since its launch two years ago.

He said O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone are all going to have to start stimulating sales of 3G handsets "or it's going to start running away from them".

So far, only Vodafone and Orange have had large-scale launches of 3G in Britain. Sales of Vodafone's 3G handsets are understood to have been poor while Orange has been forced into a buy one, get one free offer. T-Mobile is poised for a full launch of its 3G service, while O2's main push is likely to be in the second half of the year.

Analysts had pencilled in profits for Carphone of £98m to £102m for the year to the end of March 2005, with about £122m for the current year.

Carphone also said Hans Snook, the founder of Orange, will be quitting as chairman in July, to be replaced by John Gildersleeve, former commercial director of Tesco and a Carphone non-executive.

[Ben]

I'm not convinced, and it doesn't sound like they are either (https://talk3g.co.uk/showthread.php?t=278).

Perhaps in the run up to Christmas there'll be a push, but at the moment we've seen nothing but half-hearted approaches from all the 3G operators - with even Three bolstering it's offering with cheap calls.

Maybe this is more wishful thinking than anything else from Dunstone, and a message to the networks that they're not doing enough.

[Jon3G]

I cant see it either. The features of 3G are really not advertised as much for this to happen. Its only us tech people who buy the kit, or when a customer goes in store and gets sold the package

[3g-g]

It's really going to take the offer of a century for people to take up 3g the way the networks/3rd party sellers would like.

It's quite possible that the big 4 are happy to sit and let 3g be a slow burner, I'm sure with the GSM offers that there currently are it's seems like there's no slow down on new customers joining 2G.

I think if O, V, T and mmo2 were to price match 3 on their UMTS networks only there would be such an immense take up, so much so I could see it running 3 into the ground. Can you imagine all the networks offering the same price and talk bundles... and the ability to move about with seamless 3G/2G handover? (and open data access!!) I can't see why if you're running a GSM network you don't make the UMTS one more attractive for a while, boost the subscriber base then adjust your price plans in the future.

What does Charles Dunstone care anyway? He's making money whatever the networks choose to do! He's an agent for them all!

[3GScottishUser]

I think Charles Durnstone has been one of the few beneficieries from 3G to date.

He and other dealers have had very generous commissions thrown their way for pushing 3 UK's product and they know very well that it is far less reliable than GSM services and that's likely to mean high levels of churn which suits them fine as they get another load of commission 12 months on.

Its been a shrewd business move by the majors to push those early 3G phones and one which will most certainly have helped their bottom line.