Yet another high street retailer collapses: Nearly 300 Virgin Mobile staff could be left without a job, after Zavvi fell into administration (a nice business term for crumbled or dead) just before Christmas.
The retailer has a total of 83 Virgin Mobile concessions in its 92 stores. A Virgin Mobile spokesman could not confirm whether the company’s remaining 270 staff will stay in their jobs if Zavvi fails to find a buyer (not likely at this point).
Zavvi’s administrators closed 22 Zavvi stores yesterday, of which five contained Virgin Mobile concession stores. The Virgin Mobile spokesman said the 11 staff in the stores have now been redeployed to Virgin media in various capacities.
Zavvi, which was formerly Virgin Megastore, was formed after a management buy-out of the Virgin Group division in 2007. It is (or was) the UK’s largest independent retailer, and it caps a series of months where another high street retailer, Woolworths, collapsed after almost 100 years in business. It hasn’t been pretty in the UK business scene of late, that’s for certain.
It is understood that Virgin tycoon Richard Branson still holds the lease on Zavvi’s Tottenham Court Road flagship site, as well as another five sites. Virgin said it does not intend to bring back Virgin Megastores and will sublet the sites to other retailers.
Sony Ericsson aims to get things moving this new year with yet another music-based handset – the W715 Walkman phone.
This GPS-enabled cell phone will offer similar audio quality found on the highly rated (for its audio anyhow) W980 Walkman phone, complete with various features audiophiles will love including the music recognition application TrackID, SensMe for mood matching music, Shake Control for easy change of tracks and full integration with Vodafone Music, enabling users to easily access single and album downloads at their convenience. The W715 Walkman phone will also boast the following features: GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900, a decent 3.2 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi and GPS, 2.4″ TFT display and Bluetooth, of course.
This is a Vodafone exclusive, and the Sony Ericsson W715 Walkman phone will come in Galactic Black and Luxury Silver colors when available in selected markets this quarter.
You never knew a garage sale was going to break out at a phone dealership when we rung in the new year. I guess Carphone did: they have released a sale guide that has seen prices of a range of products reduced by 30-50%. Either they’re generous…or feeling the pinch of a reeling economy that has seen some of the tightest credit in the UK in many moons.
The biggest price cut (and a little surprising) is for the Samsung Soul, has seen prices fall by over £145 on pay as you go to £147.78. That over 50%, folks, and that indicates trying to clear out inventory, more than likely.
Nokia’s first Comes With Music phone, the 5310, has been reduced from £78.54 to £58.67 (that’s about 30%), while the Sony Ericsson K770i has been cut from £127.18 to £97.82 (another 30% or so).
The retailer is offering 50% off selected international calls on Talk Mobile, with calls being offered for 2p a minute to destinations including USA, China, Poland and India for January.
Other prices have been slashed on products including iPhone cases, bluetooth headsets, headphones and speakers. All of this is quite interesting, and not the best sign for Carphone in terms of corporate health. Hopefully this sale revitalizes their bottom line.
Ever wanted someone to contact you but not wanted to give them your mobile number? No, me either, but if you did happen to answer yes, your prayers have been answered! Loaf is a new texting service that allows for you to send and receive texts without the recipient getting …
Those eagerly anticipating this month’s Macworld and the prospects of a smaller iPhone should be careful, as a slew of tiny clones are introducing confusion as they reach store shelves in several countries, especially Thailand.
While silicone case molds have surfaced that allegedly hint at a smaller iPhone in the works very soon (and its all but been confirmed by Apple as a developing product at this point), a rash of similarly-sized dupes made by anonymous southeast Asian firms have added to the confusion and deception.
The devices, spotted here by AppleInsider in Thailand are almost always designed to mimic Apple’s products as closely as possible and share not only the basic design but the branding as well, in some cases directly copying the logo and the “iPhone” labeling on the back, so they can fool even a trained Apple eye.
Their software is also at times familiar and carries a similar layout, down to icons ripped directly from Apple’s interface, and similar functionality as well.
Aside from obvious color changes such as splashes of gold or pink (this is usually the tip-off that they aren’t real Apple gear), these clones are (when switched off) close enough to the original that they may pass for an iPhone “Nano” to the newbie eye.
If a picture paints a thousand words, then what is a video worth? Well it’s priceless to Nokia’s PR team it would seem as they look to continue to build on the buzz surrounding the Nokia N97. So, to set the excitement level to boiling point Nokia have released a …
Samsung has been pretty successful with it’s first big-gun promotion branded handset, the Soul U900, launched last February. And the success was deserved: it had some slick good looks and usability, and really impressive specs for the time.
But time passes quickly in the mobile world, and the novelty and sheen of the Soul wore a little thin, and those once shiny specs are looking pretty dated now.
It’s a good thing Samsung feels this way too, and has something new up it’s sleeve for the next year’s fancy big feature phone, and it’s called the Samsung S8300. Here’s the rundown on it.
Featuring an anti-scratch and anti-fingerprint coated duraluminium chasis (like the Soul), the Samsung S8300 does away with the interactive touchpad (and all its assorted issues and niggles), and opts for a simple to use optical joystick plus a big and bright 2.8? 16 million color touchscreen that’s reported to be sharp as a tack.
Full rumored Samsung S8300 specs include GSM/UMTS/HSDPA connectivity, 8MP camera with autofocus, GPS and 60MB of memory built-in, and DivX playback too. Very solid specs.
It may show up at the CES, or else the Samsung S8300 will probably get it’s official brand name and will be launched at MWC Barcelona in February, and will start shipping everywhere (UK included) in March 2009. No prices have been reported yet, but probably in the range of the Soul price wise (or maybe a little more) would be a safe bet.
Ian Clarke, solutions director for O2, sat down recently to give his take (and we agree with most of it) on the state of the mobile market going into 2009.
In 2008, the iPhone created a huge wave in the market in terms of design, features, interface and overall customer experience. It helped stimulate the handset market by prompting handset manufacturers to create even better devices with improved designs and interfaces, all taking advantage of the higher data speeds being offered by the networks (not to mention having to work extra hard to compete in the marketplace). As a result, 2008 was the year when mobile data really took off.
The year 2009 will see further innovation around the touch screen functionality we have already seen on some of these devices improving the user experience even further. More simple commands, more ease of daily use, and more customizability will be the hallmarks of the next year.
One of the main developments in 2009 will be camera phone functionality. Most camera phones are throw-ins with 2 or 3 MP and grainy pictures not of much use really. With camera phone features already offering face detection, editing and other user-friendly features historically reserved for digital cameras, consumers will increasingly be choosing a camera phone as a single device rather than a phone plus a camera tacked on. It’s always a sore spot when the cameras on these phones seem to not have had any work put into them.
More devices will be launched on the Android platform, ultimately offering customers and businesses a wide range of applications to make their lives easier on the move. The move seems to be towards more accessibility and open-source thinking, at least in the mobile world. Even Apple has started to open up their thinking to allow more accessibility to the inner workings of the iPhone. This trend will definitely continue in the coming year.
Samsung has claimed three of the top four prepay sellers in the run-up to Christmas in a bid to reinforce its position as the number one manufacturer in the UK by volume, and they’re succeeding admirably. It seems many in the UK favor a prepaid scheme for their cell phones.
The three devices – the J700, E250 and G600 – are selling over 100,000 units in total every week, and have been for a little while now. Sales have been bolstered by the Tocco and U600 handsets, which are also bringing in strong prepay sales as well. It seems Samsung has found a niche.
It is a radical departure from Samsung’s previous reluctance to compete in the prepay market, and marks a new strategy to fight harder for every bit of market share, something they need to do in these tough economic times.
The manufacturer has cut its prices in a bid to hit key prepay price points with operator subsidy – £100 in the case of the G600 and below £30 for both the J700 and E250. The U600 is being pushed below £50, and Samsung has even gone as low as £10 with the B130, which is bottom line more or less, almost cost in some circles.
The manufacturer has seen its share catapult from 19% at the start of 2008 to over 30% as the year closes. We’ll keep an eye on this as Samsung launches a full offensive to grab the biggest slice of prepaid pie in the UK.
Nokia’s first ever touch screen phone, the 5800 XpressMusic, looks set to hit stores in the UK in February next year. It’ll be curious to see how things go. A lot will be riding on the success of this phone, for their music service and the future direction of their company, as far as mobiles go.
Nokia has said that the device – the first specifically designed to host the Comes With Music service – would be available in time for Christmas. However, the manufacturer later revealed that the handset’s release would be delayed until the first quarter of 2009 for engineering and marketing reasons, and to hone their music service.
The 5800 XpressMusic is likely to be a welcome addition to Nokia’s line, with the Comes With Music service yet to take off as the manufacturer hoped (it’s struggling). One of the reasons attributed to the slow start has been the lack of cutting edge handsets that the service has been available on (makes sense; without phones to use it on, what’s the point?).
We reported last week that Nokia is also understood to be preparing to offer Comes With Music on new N96 handsets (with no plan to update existing customers, which caused quite a bit of anger, no doubt).
Yet another high street retailer collapses: Nearly 300 Virgin Mobile staff could be left without a job, after Zavvi fell into administration (a nice business term for crumbled or dead) just before Christmas. 
