Carphone Warehouse sees revenue increase

Retail-to-broadband firm Carphone Warehouse today reported a positive start to its financial year after quarterly revenues increased 22% to just more than £1bn (€1.5bn).

The group, which has several outlets in Ireland, 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 (€664.1m), 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 £345 million, 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 (€29.84) 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.

Chief executive Charles Dunstone said: "We have started the year well. The retail business is enjoying good growth and we continue to take market share. Our broadband operations are making good progress, with the levels of sales and migrations giving excellent visibility of future profitability."