Carphone Warehouse clings to buoyant fondleslab, avoids submerging
Margins sure to be better in China than Europe, right?
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Lower handset subsidies and a lack of choice in the low end caused high-street business to drop more than 5 per cent in Europe according to Carphone Warehouse, though the retailer still managed to maintain profits within its own predictions.
The drop in retail was offset by a decent performance in Virgin Mobile France, which has apparently recovered from the hit it took when Free Mobile launched. Also helping the bottom line are sales of tablets and accessories, which are up 15 per cent, not to mention the cash injection from the sale of Best Buy mobile which saw £813m returned to shareholders.
That sale pushed overall profit up to £762.2m, compared to £67m the previous year, but actual earnings remained effectively static at £135m – which is within, but at the bottom of, the range the company had predicted.
The mobile phone retailer said it "expect[s] the consumer environment in Europe to remain challenging in the year ahead along with the continued effect of regulation and competition in the mobile market".
Operating costs are down, around £30m has been sliced off expenditure over the last 12 months, and the company still plans to open its first Chinese branch, in cooperation with Best Buy, later this month - presumably hoping it will fare better than the coalition's European experiment. ®
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COMMENTS
Another true story
Two weeks ago when into several different CW and P4U and asked if they would be stocking the new Nokia Pureview. Every time they'd ask another salesperson and then the manager who would ask me what it was. They then checked their website and told me that they didn't have it (eventually after apologising several times about how slow their computer was in accessing the internet).
One time I went into a 3 shop and started looking at the N8 and the E7. Sales person came over and told me I didn't want one of those, the iphone 4s was just in and much better and refused to answer any of my questions about the Nokias. Didn't waste any more of my time. Suspect that's true of sales people in general (pushing customers towards products that get them the most commission/meet target) rather than being a problem with one particular shop or network.
Re: True story
"I once bought a phone from CPW -- almost every week I received unsolicited phone calls to the new phone number I got with the phone, offering me mobile phone insurance and various other 'deals'. Might turn out to be a mistake giving CPW your phone number...."
That's OK. I was with Orange in the middle of the last decade. So my number has already been sold/given/lost to every phone-scam artist going. Mostly in Manchester for some weird reason...
Re: True story
Manchester + dodgy premium rate scams can only mean 1 thing: http://www.2ergo.com
Check 'em out! http://tinyurl.com/cgak7yc
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