UK Chocolate Bar Makers Blindsided!For the first time in 50 years, sales of chocolate bars in the UK fell in 2001. Sales fell by £150 million or 4.3 per cent. Was the culprit other sweet makers? No because they fell too. The crisp makers? No. What then? Kids are spending more of their pocket money on mobile phone top-up cards.Spending on mobile telephones has risen to £6.82 billion in 2001 from £5.25 billion a year earlier. The biggest increases are on sending text messages on pre-paid mobile telephones, which is very popular among teenagers. Instead of buying a Mars Bar at a news agents kids are scrabbling together enough change to buy a £5 top-up card so they can keep using their mobiles. And the future is not looking brighter for chocolate makers as the number of young people - some as young as eight or nine - who own mobile telephones is continuing to increase. Do you think that in their strategic planning sessions senior executives of chocolate bar makers were looking at cellular phone providers as their competition?
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