Bono's hotline to help Africa

A mobile phone that will raise "hundreds of millions" for Aids sufferers in Africa was launched today by rock star Bono.

The £149 Motorola handset, which is compatible with all major mobile networks, is the latest consumer product linked to the U2 singer's Red Global Fund.

The founders of the fund - which aims to tap into the spending power of western consumers - hopes it will be the most lucrative deal signed to date.

For every phone sold, Motorola will donate £10 to the fund.

A further five per cent of the user's monthly phone bill will also be added to the appeal; for a typical £300 annual mobile bill, £15 will go to the fund.

Bono, who unveiled Red at January's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said today that he would be "very disappointed if [the phone] did not raise hundreds of millions of dollars".

Anyone who buys the slimline phone, called the Red Motoslvr, only has to transfer their Sim card from their existing handset to start contributing to the fund.

Other Red mobiles are planned for later this year.

Speaking at the central London launch of the Red Motoslvr, Bono said the idea for a "charity phone" that could be used on all networks had come from Charles Dunstone, the multi-millionaire founder and chief executive of the Carphone Warehouse.

The Irish singer said: "I thought it was the maddest idea, I thought 'there's hope for the Middle East peace process if we can pull this off.'

"It is 21st century technology being made to work against one of the great three curses of the 21st century - the biggest health pandemic in 600 years.

"This is a historic moment, not just in marketing terms but also in the battle against this tiny little virus."

The phone will be aimed at Britain's estimated 1.5 million "conscience consumers", who want to shop as ethically as possible.

Motorola is the fifth company to announce a tie-in with Red.

The others are American Express, which has a Red-branded credit card, clothing chain Gap, which launched a range of T-shirts, Armani, which is selling Bono's trademark wraparound sunglasses to raise money for the fund, and shoe-maker Converse, which has started selling Red shoes made from African mudcloth.

Bono and American charity entrepreneur Bobby Shriver set up the original Global Fund in 2002.

The pair have raised £2.5 billion for Aids, TB and malaria programmes in Africa.