Carphone Warehouse outperforms forecasts
Demand strong at mobile retailer
January 15 2004
Carphone Warehouse saw trading exceed its expectations in the run-up to Christmas, driven by demand from consumers for new handsets.
In the thirteen weeks to December 27, retail sales grew 32.8 per cent, with 27.7 per cent like-for-like growth.
The company said handset shortages were less of a problem than had been expected, with a strong range of new phones and increased competition between the mobile networks helping sales.
Finance director Roger Taylor told news agency Reuters: “You have a pipeline of new products coming from the manufacturers and the networks are back in the growth mode. It’s the networks’ interest as it is the manufacturers to ensure that customers upgrade to a new handset. That’s the only way they can drive the data revenues that they need to do in the future.”
Chief executive Charles Dunstone said: “Third quarter trading was stronger than anticipated. Subscription connections growth accelerated again, stimulated by network competition and a vibrant handset market.
“The gift market was strong, driven by attractive pre-pay deals and good accessories sales. Opal and talktalk continue to demonstrate good momentum and I am confident that the group will achieve a full year result ahead of current consensus market expectations.”
The talktalk fixed-line service signed up 99,000 customers in the third quarter, bringing total to 239,000. Carphone Warehouse aims to have signed up to 400,000 subscribers by March, when it expects the fixed-line operation to break even.
Carphone Warehouse expects the strong market conditions of the last six months to continue into 2004, and “we are confident of further good progress, although the percentage growth rate in mobile connections in the next financial year is likely to be lower given our increasingly strong performance in the current year.”
