mm02 to beat expectations for year 2001

Shares in mm02, Europe's fifth largest mobile phone company, rose on Friday after the company said that it expected to beat estimates of £ 410 million for its full year earning.

Shares in mm02, Europe's fifth largest mobile phone company, rose on Friday after the company said that it expected to beat estimates of £410m (€664m) for its full year earning.

The company also said that capital expenditure was to be lower than market expectations of around £ 1.3 bn (€2.1bn), so that the company would have a lower than expected debt figure for the year. Mm02, which owns Digifone, was formerly part of British Telecom Group.

Besides Digifone the mm02 also owns BT Cellnet, Viag Intercom of Germany and Dutch company Telfort Mobiel.

On Thursday mobile company Orange, based in the UK and France with subsidiaries worldwide, said that for the year ended 31st December, 2001, it had increased its total customer base by 8.8 million to 39.3 million and grew total revenues by 25% to € 15,087 million. The company is Europe' no 2 mobile operator.