Carphone Warehouse further expands in the US

Carphone Warehouse, Europe’s largest independent mobile phone retailer, has posted strong sales and an increase in headline profits and said that it will expand further into the US through its joint-venture with retailer Best Buy Co. over the next 2 years.

The two companies plan to open 1,000 Best Buy Mobile stores by 2009. The companies had opened 70 US stores by the end of September, with previous company guidance saying that between 150 to 200 stores were expected to be open by mid-2008.

Group revenues for Carphone Warehouse for the half-year to September 29 were £2.14 billion – an increase of 18%, while pre-tax profits were £9.6 million compared with a loss last time of £4.7 million affected by £46.3 million of amortisation and reorganisation costs. Fixed line revenue increased 49% to £697 million, while retail revenues were up 1.6% like-for-like.

Carphone Warehouse now has at lest 17% of the UK broadband market but faces stiff competition, O2 is about to enter the broadband market and Sky recently announced that it has signed its one millionth customer - just 14 months after launching the service.

Carphone Warehouse expects a good second half in the retail business, with new product launches and the rising interest in mobile data services driving consumer demand.

Carphone Warehouse has recently been promoted to the FTSE-100 and has just launched Talkmobile, a new low-cost mobile service, with Vodafone.

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