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Despite a slowdown in the sale of handsets across Europe, a spokesperson for Carphone Warehouse told ElectricNews.Net that it plans to add to its 42 stores in Ireland. The retailer also does not anticipate having to close any of its outlets here. Carphone Warehouse employs almost 200 people in the Republic.
"Our businesses in Portugal and Ireland performed well in a rapidly changing market place, reflecting the strength of the management in place," the company said in the announcement of its results for the year to 30 March 2002, which were released on Thursday.
The results showed an eight percent decline in like-for-like retail sales. The retailer also saw its pre-tax profits fall from STG49.6 million in 2001 to STG46.8 million in the current year, and it closed a significant number of under performing stores during the period.
When exceptional charges of STG31.2 million at its German operations and charges of STG23.9 million for investment losses and the restructuring of its data services business are included, the company had a pre-tax loss of STG23 million.
However, these results are broadly in line with market expectations and did see the company increase its share in its main market, the UK, from 12 percent a year ago to 20 percent at the end of March. The retailer also plans to open 100 new stores in Europe over the next year, which would give it a total of around 1,200 outlets.
The business did not fare so well in some of its other European markets, particularly in Germany and Belgium where losses increased to STG14.5 million from STG7 million in the previous year. Carphone Warehouse said that that following store closures and management changes these losses would be reduced, but further action and time would be needed before a full turnaround would be achieved in these markets.
The retailer has previously said it has high hopes that data services will emerge as a key revenue generator, but with 2.5G and 3G yet to make an impact the division only increased its revenues from STG1.1 million during 2001 to STG1.8 million in 2002, with losses down from STG5.3 million the year previously to STG2.4 million.
Its on-line business though managed to connect over 196,000 customers during the year and it contributed revenues of STG36.7 million, up from STG32.6 million in 2001, to the group's STG1.15 billion turnover.
The company also managed to increase the number of customers signed up to valuable long-term contracts by 200,000 to 1.8 million over the year.
Charles Dunstone, the company's chief executive officer, said that the business has outperformed the European handset market, which is down 40 percent. Looking forward, Dunstone said that the company had managed to increase sales without the benefit of offerings such as picture messaging and 3G services, which are likely to prove attractive to consumers when the become available.
In trading on the London Stock Exchange, Carphone Warehouse was up nearly 10 percent at STG0.84 by 2.15pm. The company's stock has traded in a 52-week range of STG0.64 to STG1.22.
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