Brightstar claims global leadership in accessory distribution

Founder and CEO Marcelo Claure claims Brightstar is now the world’s biggest distributor of mobile phone accessories. 20:20 franchise model in Spain to be rolled out globally.

Brightstar claims it has become the world’s largest distributor of mobile phone accessories in the past 12 months – thanks to a series of major contract wins, acquisitions and organic growth.

According to the firm’s chief executive Marcelo Claure, the recent acquisition will see it buy and sell more than $300 million of accessory stock by the end of the year.

Claure said the firm is now more focused than ever before on the market segment and will utilise the knowledge and expertise from its acquistions to help expand the business further.

Claure said: “With the recent acquisitions we are suddenly the largest mobile phone accessory company in the world, and we will buy and sell more than $300 million-worth of accessories, so we are going to put a lot of focus on growing the accessory business in Europe.”

20:20 roll-out

Claure also revealed Brightstar will look to replicate the success of 20:20’s franchise business with Spanish MVNO Yoigo on a global basis.

The Yoigo deal see 20:20 effectively manage all aspects of Yoigo’s “hundred plus” retail stores, understood to include supply of all handsets and accessory and even its call centres.

Claure said 20:20’s strength in the accessory market was something the business as a whole can learn from, and integrate into its other business markets.

“I really like their accessory business,” said Claure. “There is a lot of legacy from the days of Dextra. One thing Brightstar  does well is share best practices, so there are things we can learn from the European team which we can implement into other areas. We love what they do in Spain, operating hundreds of franchise stores Yoigo; lots of things we can learn and export it to other parts of the world.”