Rumours that News International will consider launching a newspaper to replace the News of the World have circulated for months, and probably only one event can dispel them

Trinity Mirror has picked up the bulk of the 60% of NoW copies that have not entirely fallen out of the market since June 2011, and arguably the longer any launch is delayed the harder it will be for NI to attract them back

The £150 million revenue once generated by NoW is diminished and dispersed among rival publishers and we estimate that even a triumphant launch would likely generate half to two thirds of the income of the closed title

Carphone Warehouse’s Q3 2011/12 volume and revenue was severely hit by a steep reduction in UK prepay volumes, with prepay subsidy cuts driving a drop in the UK market of as much as 40%

However, stronger volumes of higher margin contract handsets drove a small improvement in gross profit for the quarter

The unexpected prepay weakness means that Carphone Warehouse’s handset business will have roughly flat operating profit in its 2011/12 financial year at best, although given the negative external factors this would reflect a strong underlying performance