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Carphone Warehouse posts strong results

They're good, but not great

Carphone Warehouse has posted its interim results for the six months to 30 September, with revenue up over 40 per cent to £1.8bn

The phone flogger claimed "headline" profit up an even better 60 per cent to £59.3m.

However, expenses incurred setting up broadband infrastructure, and the launch of Virgin Mobile France, hurt, reducing pre-tax, or as we call them, real, profits to £14.1m, less than half last year's £37m.

The impact of Vodafone's exclusive deal with Phones4U won't be felt yet, and chief executive Charles Dunstone said the company is in discussions with Vodafone about a pan-European framework covering both contract and pre-paid customers.

Also interesting is the growth of the various Carphone Warehouse branded mobile networks, with TalkTalk Mobile now the primary brand.

Nearly half a million mobile customers are using the Carphone Warehouse MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) in the UK, and the company is looking to grow that considerably. Other MVNO operations in France (with Virgin), Spain, and Portugal are all on track.

There has been some talk of Sky acquiring Carphone Warehouse to gain a mobile phone operation, and these figures give some credibility to that, though it would be an expensive move for Sky.

The full statement is available here, but in summary: things are going well, though not quite as well as the company had hoped. ®

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