Canadian-based research company IE Market Research Corp. has predicted the shape of the UK mobile industry in 2014. Its latest forecast anticipates a UK total of 84 million mobile subscriptions by the end of 2014. The merged Orange and T-Mobile customer base is expected to maintain its market share – calculated by IEMR to be 41% – while O2's subscriber market share will increase to 28% and Vodafone's share will drop fractionally to 23.3% in 2014.

O2 is looking for a new mobile money partner after ending its partnership with NatWest, according to a report in Mobile News. NatWest will continue to provide banking services for the Cash Manager and Load & Go cards until a new provider is chosen. O2 Money, the brand behind the two cards, was launched last summer.

O2 UK is now offering Research In Motion’s BlackBerry smartphones on a Pay & Go prepaid tariff. The company's Pay & Go deal for BlackBerry smartphones offers customers inclusive BlackBerry Messenger usage and 500MB of monthly data when they top-up with a minimum of £15 per month.

O2 has launched a £5-a-month mobile broadband contract that offers 500MB of data. There's an upfront charge of £19.99 for the dongle, which also provides unlimited WiFi access at via The Cloud and BT Openzone. The tariff can be cancelled with just 30 days notice.

­Telefónica Europe, which runs O2 in the UK, says revenue reached €7.28 billion in the first half of 2010, up 10.8% year-on-year. It now has a total of 54.5 million customers in Europe, up 6.1% year-on-year. 45.2 million of these are on its mobile networks.

Telefonica O2 UK'S customer base (excluding Tesco Mobile) increased 4.5% year-on-year to 21.6 million at the end of June. The number of 'contract' customers was up 11.7% year-on-year.