Carphone reports December quarter mix bag

UK mobile retailer the Carphone Warehouse reported financial results for the quarter to the end of December on Friday, slightly missing analyst expectations.

Total revenues for the quarter increased 14 per cent year on year, reaching £1.2bn, but still short of forecasts.

The retailer hinted that less activity on the high street over Christmas and a shift away from prepaid to postpaid contracts was to blame.

Subscription contracts increased 11 per cent to 1.3 million net adds for the period, while prepaid additions reached 2.1 million, up 13 per cent. However, SIM free purchases dropped 11 per cent to 155,000 as more consumers turned to mobile phone contracts to get upgrades.

Total mobile revenues were up just 1 per cent to £133m.

Charles Dunstone, Carphone’s chief executive officer, said, “We believe we are well positioned as a Group, despite the more uncertain consumer environment.Although the pre-pay market was a little more subdued than last year, we significantly outperformed the market and grew our share, thanks to our differentiated product range and our clear value proposition. In particular, we saw further encouraging developments in our plans to provide a broader connectivity proposition, with strong growth in mobile data and fixed line broadband sales.”

UK fixed line revenues were up 36 per cent to £349m, with residential revenues climbing 57 per cent to £273m. Although B2B revenues fell 9 per cent to £77m.

The consumer broadband business took 118,000 net adds in the quarter, taking the total broadband base to over 2.6 million.