"During 2004 global subscriptions to 3G UMTS services nearly doubled to 16 million and this growth trend is set to continue as many more operators come on stream with new services," said Jan Wäreby, Corporate Executive, Vice President and Head of Sales and Marketing of Sony Ericsson, at yesterday's launch in Singapore of the K608 3G UMTS mobile phone (pictured).

"We are building our 3G portfolio to support this growth, producing handsets that effortlessly handle the diversity of services on offer," Wäreby continued. "The K608 is a classic addition to the family that consumers will immediately find appealing and intuitive."

The K608 has sleek good looks and an aluminium feel and is easy to use and navigate around. Sony Ericsson's latest intuitive dual front camera/phone design makes the handset vertical when it's a phone, and horizontal when it's a camera, and the fully featured 1.3 MegaPixel camera includes an active lens cover for swift activation and extra protection. For consumers getting used to the gripping idea of video telephony, handling video calls is done in just a few clicks with the use of the direct video telephony button. The world of applications the phone delivers, from exciting mobile content to video calling and personal creativity, are always crisp and clear with the large - 1.8 inch - 262.000 colour TFT screen

The K608 is fully featured with a suite of business applications that handle personal information management and PC-synchronization via USB or Bluetooth, making it the ideal executive work tool, providing business efficiency with high speed access.