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By Ron Coates, 3 June 2003 12:23

NEWS Carphone Warehouse today announced its first dividend and grabbed Maureen Lipman to be the face and voice of its assault on BT’s fixed-line monopoly. Carphone is showing chutzpah in its move on the BT fixed-line residential market since its launch two months ago. It started by offering £500 to anyone who didn’t save money by switching from BT to its talktalk service. The two companies have been in a slanging match ever since – most of it too tedious to report. But now, Carphone has stolen one of the UK’s best-known comediennes, and Lipman’s grandmother Beattie character - previously known for her "It's good to talk" catchphrase - will add insult to injury by taking off BT’s old campaign with the line: ‘It’s good to talk but it’s even better to talktalk’. Carphone says that it has picked up 50,000 customers for its talktalk fixed line service, with another 12,000 waiting for connection, since the launch of the service two months ago. Company CEO Charles Dunstone said he is "surprised and flattered that BT seem be treating us as their number one competitor", according to newspaper reports. He added that because of the company’s high street presence cost of customer acquisition is low. Carphone’s Opal business services network is under-used at weekends and in the evenings, when most residential calls are made. The company is to pay what it calls a ’maiden’ dividend of 1p per share after seeing pre-tax annual profits up 21.8 per cent to £57m on turnover up 60 per cent at £1.8bn. It confirmed it has bought Hutchison’s German service arm for £32.4m cash. Dunstone, the company’s largest shareholder, will pick up just over £3m in dividend payments.