Walk around the streets of Brighton and Hove and every day you'll see hundreds of people using mobile phones and scores of shops selling them.

Yet Hosiden Besson, based in Hove, could be axing a third of its workforce shortly because of a slowdown in the market.

The firm, which makes accessories for mobile phones, has been around for 40 years. It started by making earpieces and microphones for the NHS.

It's been one of the most successful and reliable firms in the Hove area over that time. But now it has become reasonably big, it is subject to forces outside its control.

Hosiden Besson is also being affected by the strong pound and the downturn of the economy in the United States.

So mobile phones are not the licence to print money most buyers would think they were, at least for this company.

Hosiden Besson is learning the hard way that being big is not always beautiful. So are some of its unfortunate staff who could lose their jobs through no fault of their own.