Carphone Warehouse group like-for-likes climb 3.1% over Christmas

The retailer’s UK like-for-like revenue increased 5% and Carphone Warehouse said it increased its market share here.

Carphone Warehouse reported: “This was an impressive performance given the reduced marketplace activity ahead of the wider roll-out of 4G across Europe, the continued double-digit decline of the pre-pay market and continuing weak consumer sentiment.”

Carphone Warehouse reiterated its profit guidance for the year, and expects to generate headline EBIT in the range of  £140m to £160m.

The retailer attracted a record numbers of visitors to its websites over the quarter.

Carphone Warehouse chief executive Andrew Harrison said:  “As anticipated, post-pay volumes remain subdued while the market transitions to 4G. Against this, our strong brand awareness and our excellent retail execution meant that Carphone Warehouse again increased its UK market share.

“We remain focused on our multichannel customer journey, on driving 4G penetration and continuing to make good progress in our partnership relationships and our Connected World services business.”

Caphone Warehouse said it delivered a “creditable performance from a number of markets, particularly Spain and Ireland”, and it continued to make progress in Germany.

Its Virgin Mobile France business suffered a revenue decline of 15.6% in a “highly competitive market”.  

Carphone Warehouse said: “Whilst challenging market dynamics across Europe remain, we are very encouraged by the impact of 4G to date and expect its momentum to build as 4G network capacity is expanded across all of our European markets.”