Overall profits rise, but sales revenues effected by lack of value pre-pay smartphones
Carphone Warehouse’s European revenues fell by 5.5 per cent to £3.31billion for the year ending March 31, due in part to a ‘lack of attractively priced smartphones in the pre-pay sector’ according to its latest set of financial results.
However, the drop in revenue in the pre-pay market had little effect on its profits according to the firm, which posted an after tax profit of £762.2m, up from £67.2m in March 2011 – due largely to the sale of its interest in Best Buy Mobile, which returned £813m to shareholders.
The financial report also revealed Carphone expects the vast majority of UK stores to use the new ‘Wireless World’ format in the next two to three years, including a wider-uptake of the Geek Squad initiative.
CEO Roger Taylor commented: “Our core businesses have performed well during the year, delivering a robust performance in a challenging environment. CPW Europe continues to take advantage of its positioning in the connected world, focusing on its newly designed store format, wider product and service proposition and strong relationships with network partners, all of which have enabled us to meet our target for the year.
“We expect the consumer environment in Europe to remain difficult, but we see opportunities as well as challenges and we are confident in our strategic positioning and operational execution.”
In its last financial year, in Europe as a whole the group opened or moved 195 stores, closed 149 and sold 82 in Belgium, which meant the company ended its financial year with 2,393 outlets, 36 fewer stores than in March 2011.
