The company will change its tariffs to include a �4-a-month charge for unlimited sending of picture messages, and put training staff in its 248 UK stores.

Like many mobile phone firms, Orange has spent the past two years concentrating on getting more money out of its customers, instead of on simply adding new users to its roster, which barely grew in the first three months of this year.

Mobile data services are seen as the way to do that, and the company said it wants to double the number of customers using data to two million of its 13.5 million-strong user base.

10% of the use

Orange's finances are in a relatively healthy state, since much of its debt is held by parent France Telecom.

Sales were up 10% in the first three months of the year over the same period of 2002.

Data revenue makes up 12% of that, and Orange wants to lift that to 25% by 2005 - although mobile phone operators were saying much the same about the year 2001 during the tech boom of the 1990s.

Four out of five Orange customers, the company noted in a statement, use only 10% of their phones' capabilities.

"Our customers aren't getting the most out of their phones," said David Taylor, vice-president of customer marketing for Orange.