Business news for Thu, 20 Dec 2007 & with words market+phone. 2 news.

IT took a computer maker and a pager company to convince Americans a mobile phone is worth paying for, and now shoppers are splurging. US customers shelled out 40 percent more for handsets last quarter than a year earlier, just as Apple Inc put its Web-browsing iPhone on sale and Research In Motion Ltd brought out BlackBerry e-mail phones with video features. Spending rose to a record and jumped the most since at least 2005, Bloomberg News reported. Americans, previously hard-pressed to pay US$50 for a phone, are now more like their European and Asian counterparts and paying up to US$400 for the top devices. That will translate into higher sales for Apple and Research In Motion and may bolster rivals Nokia Oyj and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd, which tried for years to promote camera and music phones to US buyers. "The iPhone has made the US consumer appreciate the value of the mobile phone," said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Stamford, Connecticut-based

VIVENDI'S SA's SFR phone unit has offered to buy the rest of Neuf Cegetel for 4.5 billion euros (US$6.5 billion) to challenge France Telecom SA in the market for combined fixed-line, Internet and mobile services. SFR, which owns 40.5 percent of Neuf, will pay 34.50 euros a share for the 29.5 percent stake held by Louis Dreyfus & Cie, the commodities firm that helped found Neuf a decade ago, Bloomberg News reported. SFR will bid 36.50 euros for the remaining shares in the market. The prices include the 2007 dividend. The acquisition of Neuf Cegetel, France's second-largest fixed-line phone company, adds 3.1 million high-speed Internet customers for SFR and more than 3 billion euros in annual revenue. SFR, Vivendi's largest business, has about 34 percent of the French mobile market, compared with France Telecom's 45 percent. "This would create a more formidable competitor," Jerry Bellman, analyst at Kepler Equities in Paris, said. "For SFR this is a defensive move,