Carphone Warehouse has completed its planned acquisition of Best Buy’s 50% share of the CPW Europe business, bringing an end to the joint retail venture.

From next month’s AGM, Andrew Harrison is stepping up to become CEO of the Carphone Warehouse Group. Roger Taylor, current Group CEO, will become deputy chairman.

Carphone Warehouse is planning to take over the European business that bears its name, which is actually a 50/50 joint venture set up with US-based retailer Best Buy in June 2008. It’s agreed to pay £471 million for the 50% of CPW Europe it doesn’t already own.

This 50% share in Carphone Warehouse was originally sold for around £1.1 billion as part of Best Buy’s European expansion.

American technology retailer Best Buy Co. Inc. has confirmed that it’s received a letter from Richard Schulze, the company’s founder and former chairman, outlining an offer to acquire all the Best Buy shares he doesn’t already own. Mr Schulze resigned as chairman in June this year.

His offer of $24 to $26 per share is significantly above the current trading price for the company’s shares, which are trading at around $20.

Carphone Warehouse Group plc has published a trading update for the fourth quarter of its financial year.

Revenue at CPW Europe - the company’s 50% joint venture with Best Buy - were down 5.5%, while total connections were down 19%. Postpay connections were up in the UK, although the company estimates that the overall prepay market in Q4 was down 30-40% in the UK.

The UK-based Mobile Money Network, which is behind the Simply Tap mobile shopping app, says Visa Europe is planning to take a 15% stake in its business. Visa Europe will join the MNN’s three founders: Monitise, Best Buy Europe and Charles Dunstone.

The two businesses aim to implement a number of m-commerce initiatives in the UK in 2012.

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?

We have a varied collection of mobile industry news stories in this week's podcast, including new rules affecting airline passengers with smartphones.

We also talk about BlackBerry giving up its European research centre, Vodafone installing fibre-optic broadband, Samsung's profits, spending on mobile advertising, M2M adoption and WiFi on trains.

In this week's podcast we talk about two of the big announcements from Google I/O: a new version of Android and the retail launch of smartwatches powered by 'Android Wear'.

We also talk about Android-based smartphones from Nokia and Blackphone, network complaints in the UK, a reduction in European roaming charges and mobile ticketing.

This week's podcast covers the launch of the first Amazon smartphone and the introduction of Google Glass to the UK.

We also talk about new WiFi-powered voice services from EE and Three, plans to reduce mobile 'black spots', BlackBerry's app partnership, smartphone theft, 4G innovation... and rechargeable trousers.

We open this week's podcast with news about the European Commission and South Korea working together on 5G mobile technology.

There's a quick look at Samsung's new tablet, some acquisition deals to talk about, a tax investigation, research into wearable devices and plenty of other mobile industry news as well.

This week's podcast begins with Ofcom's plans to cut the wholesale cost of inter-network mobile phone calls. But what benefit will consumers see?

Iain, James and Mark then move on to discuss luxury smartphones, a new handset on the high street, mobile broadband for aircraft passengers, government monitoring, the growth of smartphones - and 4G-equipped donkeys.