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The prediction comes in a report by Continental Research, which predicts an additional 2.5 million users buying into the market by June 2000.

That will bring the total mobile user population to 26.5 million - over half the population of Britain. At the beginning of 1999, the country boasted 12.9 million users.

That phenomenal growth contrasts with the growth between 1996 and 1997 (from about 7 million to 8 million customers), a period when the original market for customers prepared to buy monthly

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access contracts had reached a saturation level. The declining cost of calls and better network coverage helped kickstart another bout of enthusiasm, but the real stimulus has come with pre-paid packages.

Continental Research says that most of the current growth is entirely due to the availability of low-cost pay-as-you-go packages, mainly in non-technical retail environments. Supermarkets and non-mobile phone outlets are more popular now for a mobile purchase than dedicated retailers like The Link and Carphone Warehouse, and packages are regarded as "perfect gifts".

The company says the mobile market is currently almost evenly divided between the four big operators: Vodafone Airtouch, BT Cellnet, Orange and One-2-One (owned by Deutsche Telecom). Following last month's Vodafone buy-out of Mannesmann, which owns Orange, the operator is likely to be sold off to comply with EU competition rules.

Bobby Pickering

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