Quality phones at Nokia mean bad business for CRC

Repair group CRC has blamed better quality hardware for its profit slump.

The company is the world's number one maker of cell phones.

Nokia is CRC's largest customer and the fewer number of phones being sent for repair has cut its sales by 35% to €105.70m in 2003.

CRC's profits more than halved to €5.49m.

CRC is trying to lessen its exposure to the mobile phone service area, and claims half of the value of the sales lost with Nokia last year would be made up by three new acquisitions.

This would include a repair centre for Siemens Business Services and a PDA specialist.

A maintained final dividend of €0.67 is proposed to give an unchanged full year payout of €0.103.