Virgin offers One2One on high-street phones

NEWS Virgin Group and One2One are to enter into a £100m fifty-fifty joint venture to sell mobile phones, it emerged yesterday. The venture, which will be called Virgin Mobile, will sell Virgin-branded mobile phones through Virgin Group outlets, including Our Price and Virgin Megastore. Although the scheme has not been officially ratified, Virgin today confirmed that they are in the final stages of negotiations with One2One and expect to make an announcement this week. Reports claim the deal was put back whilst negotiations were completed between One2One and Deutsche Telekom, who this week announced the £8.4bn purchase of One2One. Virgin has 220 Our Price and 85 Megastore outlets and will also sell the phones online and direct through a call centre, giving it the largest high-street presence of any mobile phone vendor. Virgin also plans to rebrand some its Our Price stores and open new shops under the Virgin Mobile brand. A Virgin Mobile spokesman said that Virgin was making the move into telecommunications because "it is an exciting area - a growth area which is clouded by consumer confusion."