Christmas sales at Carphone Warehouse, Europe's biggest independent mobile phone retailer, fell after a huge drop in the pre-pay market.
The company reported a 4.7% fall in like-for-like sales across the UK and Europe in the three months to the end of December, with connections down by 16.6%.
The retailer, which has 2,400 outlets across Europe, estimated the pre-pay market as a whole fell by as much as 40% in the UK during the period.
It said it reflected a reduction in subsidies from the networks and a lack of smartphones in the sector, in turn driving more customers to sign up for contracts to get their hands on the latest smartphones.
Carphone Warehouse is now planning a big push into other electronic gadgets, such as laptops and tablets, as it seeks to replace falling revenue from the pre-pay phone market.
Income from non-mobile phone related business - such as sales of tablet devices - was up by 15% in the final quarter of 2011.
:: Meanwhile, pre-tax profits at soap, shower gel and detergent makers PZ Cussons have fallen by 13% in the last half year.
The manufacturers of Imperial Leather Soap and Carex made just over £40m in the six months to the end of November - down from £46m is the same period of 2010.
The British firm's poor results were partly attributed to recent social and economic unrest in its largest market in Nigeria.
:: The number of property sales in the UK fell to one of its lowest levels on record last year, according to HM Revenue and Customs.
Some 869,000 properties were sold in 2011, 11% less than the year before.
This is roughly half the number of transactions recorded year-on-year in the run up to the banking crisis in 2007.
:: The Government's new Work Programme has come under fire from the National Audit Office.
Auditors criticised the speed at which the new back-to-work programme was introduced last year and said the Department for Work and Pensions had vastly over-estimated how many jobseekers would be helped.
The NAO estimated the programme will help 26% of the largest group of jobseekers in England, Scotland and Wales into work, compared to an estimate of 40% by the DWP.
The auditors also warned that some of the organisations delivering the programme in areas of high unemployment may struggle to meet targets and could get into "serious financial difficulty".
But the Government defended its 'payment by results' approach.
"Unlike the last government's welfare to work schemes, we only pay when companies succeed in getting the long-term unemployed into sustained employment," said employment Minister Chris Grayling.
UK unemployment is currently at a 17-year high.
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