Carphone Warehouse overcomes 'dread' in Q3

Smartphone sales and American connections are keeping Carphone Warehouse healthy, with the CEO telling investors that things are only going to get better for Blighty.

The company, now split from TalkTalk, still owns half of Best Buy Europe which has already opened three UK stores and plans to open another three later this year, along with an online operation which should be up and running by October. Meanwhile, the Carphone Warehouse stores are rapidly converting into Wireless World, and doing very nicely out of it.

CEO Roger Taylor has been telling people he reckons the UK's in good shape, and he's optimistic about the economic future.

At Carphone Warehouse connections dropped slightly, as did sales of cheap handsets, but retail revenue is up 3.7 per cent on last year thanks to more expensive smart phones bringing in more money. The premise of Wireless World is to provide punters with more help using their new phone, which makes sense as a modern smartphone can challenge the most computer-literate of users.

On the other side of the pond Best Buy Mobile has been busy connecting US customers, 1.43 million of them so far, and is on schedule to get more than 150 stand-alone stores opened by the end of the year.

Overall revenues for the 13 weeks to July 3 were £794m, up 2.7 per cent.

The interim quarterly report doesn't provide complete financials for the company, but things do seem to be going well for the company whose then-CEO Charles Dunstone told staff 18 months ago: "Everything I read and observe fills me with dread for the state of the whole global economy." Still, even then the good Mr Dunstone noted: "Those who are still standing by 2010 will have a bright future." ®