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Charles Dunstone, chief executive of Carphone Warehouse, today revealed that the first two “Big Box” stores run jointly with the massive US electronics retailer Best Buy will open in the South-East next spring.
“They won't be in Greater London but within reach of the capital,” he said.
He said the demerger of the Carphone shops business which will become part of Best Buy Europe from the TalkTalk phone and internet service was on track for March 2010.
Carphone is also expecting to reclaim between £20 million and £25 million on the £326 million purchase of Tiscali last year because the actual number of active subscribers appears to be down 160,000 from the 1.42 million Tiscali claimed at the time of the deal.
Dunstone said both TalkTalk and the retail business had had a “good” second quarter and the company was still on track to hit its forecasts for the year to next March.
He said that TalkTalk had added a net 77,000 new broadband customers during the last three months — double what most City analysts had forecast. At the same time Tiscali had lost a net 62,000 users but had reduced its churn rate as Carphone introduced better ways of keeping customers.
On the High Street, mobile connections rose 2% to 3.17 million which Dunstone said was a robust result because it compared with the same quarter a year ago when the original 3G iPhone was launched.
