Mobile phone operators: How they fared over Christmas

NEWS Orange's UK customer base has doubled since last year to 9.83 million. The company brought in 1.56 million new customers in Q4 beating its previous record of 1.41 million for the same period in 1999. Graham Howe, deputy CEO and finance director at Orange, said in a statement: "Q4 is always a competitive quarter." At least 90 per cent of growth over the final quarter of the year was in the prepaid market. Continued progress was also made in the contract market at 111,000 new customers. As for Vodafone, the company's bumper Christmas quarter pushed the annual worldwide increase up to 13.2 million new customers - breaking through the 78 million customer mark. Vodafone added 1.4 million new subscribers in the UK, of which 1.2 million are pay as you talk customers. Peter Bamford, UK and ME&A CEO at Vodafone, said in a statement: "Performance in the UK was more than 30 per cent higher than the equivalent period in 1999." The company claims to be on track to exceed 50 per cent customer growth for its fourth successive year. Across all operators, almost five million new UK subscribers were signed up during the last year. By Lesley Cowper