Cellhire named as major player in functioning of Scottish Census

York-based Cellhire, which supplied more than 5,000 mobile phone chips to spectators and competitors at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, has secured a major contract in connection with this year’s census.

Cellhire has won the tender to supply the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) with a range of telecommunications services for the Scottish Census, which is due to take place in March.

Sue Barber, head of procurement at GROS, said Cellhire had provided a detailed breakdown of coverage for Scotland, with a recommendation about which mobile network and hardware service should be used.

The General Register Office for Scotland is part of the devolved Scottish Administration, which is responsible for the registration of births, marriages, civil partnerships, deaths, divorces and adoptions. The Scottish Census is the main source of family history records and is carried out to collate information about population and households.

Cellhire will provide mobile phones, fixed broadband and email to help GROS conduct the census.

Cellhire can supply GROS with more than 7,300 mobile phones.

Matt Bennett, managing director of Cellhire’s business in the UK, said: “We are delighted to have been selected by GROS to be their preferred telecoms provider for this major event. The tendering process was extremely vigorous but we are pleased to hear that we met all of their exacting requirements.”

Tim Williams, the chairman and chief executive of Cellhire, said the company had 110 staff altogether, including 43 in York.

Its turnover this year is expected to be around £20m.

He added: “2010 was a good year for us and we expect to have our best ever performance this year.”

With offices in the UK, US, France, Germany, Japan and China, Cellhire has developed strategic relationships with BT, O2 and Vodafone in the UK.

In 2008 Cellhire formed a link with China’s biggest mobile network to offer a tourists’ survival guide to the Beijing Olympic Games. Cellhire was the first UK operator to buy airtime from China Mobile.

It provided city guides, Games venue information and 300 useful Mandarin phrases on the mobiles of tourists and athletes travelling to Beijing.

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