Even the fast-growing world of mobile phones is likely to be hit by the consumer slowdown, Charles Dunstone, chief executive of Carphone Warehouse, admitted today.

The group plans to spend more in the short term to attract and retain customers on its TalkTalk and AOL broadband services which, with 2.7 million subscribers, has become one of the top three players in the market, he said.

For the first time ever fixed-line will overtake mobile to become the largest revenue generator at Carphone in the coming year.

Pre-tax profits for the year to end-March are likely to come in between £215 million and £220 million which is at the lower end of most analysts' forecasts. The shares fell 26p to 240½p.

Dunstone said: "We are reaffirming guidance for the year just ended and the year ahead which not too many retailers are able to do in the current environment."

On its retail side, Carphone is already seeing a slowdown from the phenomenal rates of growth enjoyed a couple of years ago. In the last three months, mobile connections rose12% against 19% the same time a year ago. But for the coming financial year Carphone is forecasting subscription growth of between 8% and 10%.

Dunstone said this reflected a fairly flat market for new handset, a slower rate of new store openings and the general slowdown in consumer demand.

"Demand for BlackBerrys and smart phones like the iPhone is good but not so much for flash voice phones, Dunstone said.

"It is now becoming more important for us to sign people up to broad-band than to sell them a new mobile voice package. We have built a business with strong recurring revenues."

On the fixed-line side Carphone added 109,000 new customers in the last quarter and expects to add another 400,000 in the coming 12 months with its target 3.5 million customers by March 2010.

Dunstone said he would be interested in acquiring Tiscali's UK broad-band business which has some 2.4 million subscribers.