Carphone boosted by revenue increase

Retail-to-broadband firm Carphone Warehouse today reported a positive start to its financial year after quarterly revenues increased 22% to just over £1bn (€1.4bn).

The group said its retail arm continued to take market share with total connections up 20% to 2.3 million and revenues ahead 12.9% at £445m (€664m), an increase of 3.6% on a like-for-like basis.

In fixed-line, where Carphone operates under the TalkTalk brand, revenues were up 49.5% to £345m (€514m), a gain of 7.1% when excluding the impact of last year’s £380m (€567m) acquisition of AOL UK.

The group is now the third largest broadband provider in the UK, behind BT and Virgin Mobile, after last year’s offer of free high-speed internet to those customers paying £20 (€29) a month for a landline phone.

Carphone is hoping for a further boost after offering a free Dell laptop with any two-year AOL broadband subscription.

It now has 2.4 million broadband customers after 126,000 net additions during the quarter.