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21st May 2003

Europe : mmO2 continued record-breaking growth for text messaging (SMS) - handling on average more than 30 million messages per day - and other mobile data services for the year ending 31 March 2003, it was announced today.This comes ahead of mmO2's preliminary results this Wednesday, May 21.

Peter Erskine ( Inset ), chief executive of mmO2, said: 'mmO2 is gaining momentum in the mobile data space and person-to-person SMS is the core service from which demand for more sophisticated higher-value data services is emerging. In the third quarter, mmO2 had already exceeded its 2002/2003 target of 16% of service revenues from data, and this trend was further accelerated in the fourth
quarter. This puts the company well on track to achieve 25% of revenues from
data by the end of 2004.'

SMS

Group-wide, more than 11.6(1) billion text messages were sent and received
during the year and around 60% of O2 customers now use text messaging. In the
UK, O2 maintained its number one position and carried more than 8.3 billion text
messages during the year(2), giving it a market share of 35%. In all markets, O2
increased the number of customers using SMS and messages sent per month. O2
Ireland, for example, consistently achieved amongst the highest SMS usage levels
in Europe with each customer sending and receiving on average 100 messages each
per month.

Premium SMS

Taking person-to-person SMS to the next stage, O2 is also leading the market in
the provision of innovative premium text messaging services, leveraging its
partnerships in broadcast and football. In the UK, more than a third of premium
SMS's are football-related and the business handled nearly seven million premium
texts from fans during the course of the season. Arsenal's international fan
base also took advantage of ring-tones, match analysis and commentary, text
alerts and votes and multimedia messages (MMS) via their mobile handsets. The
company expects to announce plans to offer similar services for fans of other
Premiership clubs shortly.

O2 UK, in conjunction with Channel 4, is also introducing a range of new
interactive mobile data services to coincide with the launch this Friday of Big
Brother 4 - a fly-on-the-wall television programme in the UK, which it is
sponsoring for the second consecutive year. The new services will enable
customers to receive pictures, news updates and 3D talking heads of the
contestants to their MMS handsets as well as text the producers, send a message
direct to the on-screen news ticker and nominate 'housemates' for eviction. Last
year, O2 UK handled more than 10 million related texts from viewers.

In Ireland, viewers of the show can, for the first time, evict people from the
Big Brother house by using O2 Ireland's premium text service. Irish viewers can
also keep up to date throughout the nine weeks with all the hidden gossip
sessions, stolen kisses and escape plots via the Big Brother news alerts.

Peter Erskine continued: 'This year we expect to see a continuation of the
explosive growth in text and interactive services on the back of such
sponsorships as Big Brother 4. In addition, we will continue to build on the
success of the O2 brand, focus on data-centric customer segments and innovative
customer services, such as text 'Bolt-on's', to further attract and retain high
value customers.'

GPRS

Signs that usage of 'email on the move', multimedia messaging services (MMS) and
Java games is on the increase was reflected in the latest GPRS figures. mmO2 now
has more than half a million 'active' GPRS customers up from 200,000 at the end
of December 2002.

O2 media messaging

The O2 media messaging service was launched in October 2002 and by the end of
the year there were around 100,000 active MMS users across the O2 footprint,
sending an average of five messages per month. O2 has led MMS interconnect
agreements with other network operators across its territories. During the last
few months, it announced the first such deals with Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile
in the UK and O2 customers in Germany now have full interconnect with T-Mobile,
Vodafone and E-Plus.

O2 'Games Arcade'

O2's Java games service, the O2 Games Arcade, launched in September 2002 and is
proving highly popular amongst the high value 'youth' target audience. By the
year-end more than 278,000 games had been purchased. The service is constantly
made more appealing by the addition of the latest games - more than 60 new games
have been added in the last few months as well as an online highest score
service.

Music and Video Trials

O2 has recently announced trials of video and the world's first 'music over
mobile' services using GPRS. Video services being trialled include the ability
to create and send 10-second video clips, and to browse, select and download
video clips including regularly updated news, sport, weather and entertainment.
Once selected, the clip will be 'streamed' or downloaded direct to the mobile
handset. The O2 music service enables customers to select, retrieve and store
the latest chart hits via their GPRS-enabled mobile handset onto a specially
designed 'digital music player' - and start listening in around 12 seconds. O2
is working with some of the biggest names in broadcasting and media, to support
these services, including MTV and BMG.

O2 Online

At the year-end the Online channel accounted for more than 600,000 of the O2 UK
customer base, compared to just over 300,000 at the end of last year. Online
customer ARPU is significantly higher than that of customers acquired through
other channels, in particular for pre-pay customers, mainly reflecting their
higher mobile data usage. O2 is the clear leader in the UK online market well
ahead of it s nearest competitors, reflected in overall WAP and web portal
usage, as well as customer numbers.