Carphone Warehouse has published an interim management statement for the latest financial quarter, which ended on 30th June 2012. It says sales in its European business, although up 5.7% year-on-year to £776 million, were actually down 2% on a like-for-like basis.

Total connections in Europe were down 17.8% to just under 2 million.

Mark Bridge writes:

Is there any product that offers as much potential for additional sales as the mobile phone?

When I visit a coffee shop to buy a coffee, I’m often asked “would you like any pastries or muffins with that?”

On the one occasion that I bought a new car, I was offered the option of paying extra for different colours, for floor mats and for a fancy stereo. When you buy a DVD player or a games console, it’s pretty obvious you’ll be paying extra for entertainment.

Yet, when you consider the variety of add-ons available in the mobile industry, I’d say smartphones were in a league of their own.

Mark Bridge writes:

Oh, how cheerful we were last Monday. Apple previewed iOS6, which will bring mobile tickets (and 200 other new features) to the iPhone and iPad this autumn. Vodafone cut the cost of using your phone in Europe with its flat-rate £3-per-day EuroTraveller deal and a few days later Three came up with its own ‘unlimited’ European data roaming.

Yet by the end of the week there were fewer smiles in the mobile industry.

Charles Dunstone, chairman and co-founder of Carphone Warehouse, has been awarded a knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List “for services to the Mobile Communications Industry and to charity”.

Dr Michael Short, president of the Institution of Engineering & Technology and vice president at Telefónica Europe, is to receive a CBE.

Carphone Warehouse Group plc has published its preliminary results for the year ended 31st March 2012.

Net profit was £57.7 million, up from last year, although revenues from its European retail business were down 5.5% year-on-year to £3,313.1 million.

Mark Windle, head of marketing at OpenCloud, predicts that this year’s reduction in the number of traditional telecoms operators in some countries will provide an opportunity for other operators to innovate and capture market share in 2016.

He says next year will be a year of rapid change for telecoms… whether it’s MVNO disruption, competitive tariff pricing or simply defence from the ‘dark art’ of hacking.

Mark Bridge writes:

The most memorable moments in life often go unrecorded. You don't have your camera in your hands. Your finger is still hovering over the 'pause' button on your audio recorder. Or you were simply too busy experiencing whatever was happening. It's all about the one that got away.

That's where Kapture can help.

Mark Bridge writes:

James Rosewell shows me a colourful roll of paper that's the width of an iPhone but well over three metres long. When I look closer, I can see it's a printed copy of the Wall Street Journal's mobile website. That's a lot of scrolling to do... and a pretty unfriendly user experience for anyone reading the news online. Why does it work so badly?

Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge return to review their mobile industry predictions from last year. Which mergers, partnerships and developments did they forecast correctly... and which didn’t work out as planned?

Later in the programme, the team anticipates some of the topics that will be hitting the headlines during 2016.

Mark Bridge learns about the mobile technology trends at Mobile World Congress 2015 by chatting to James Rosewell of 51Degrees, Dr Kevin Curran from the IEEE and Chris Millington of Doro.

They talk about wearable devices, wireless charging, mobile operating systems and much more... including some of their favourite products from the exhibition.

We're taking a look back at the biggest mobile industry news stories from February 2015, including allegations that the UK's security service tried to breach SIM card security by hacking into one of the world's biggest SIM producers.

We also talk about the planned BT and EE merger, the creation of two new UK virtual networks, some acquisitions in the mobile payment arena and a new Ubuntu smartphone.

In today's programme Mark Bridge talks to Chris Millington, who's Managing Director for Doro UK and Ireland.

They discuss the state of mobile retailing in the UK, the future of wearable devices and - as you might expect - smartphones for seniors.

We're back with a month of mobile industry news, including takeover talks and takeover rumours. O2 and Three are said to be discussing a merger... but is there any truth in the suggestions that BlackBerry could be up for grabs?

We also discuss Apple's record-breaking quarterly figures, the highlights of CES and the launch of Microsoft Windows 10, as well as saying farewell to the current version of Google Glass.