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Carphone revenues helped along by 2.5m broadband customers

In its half yearly results, Carphone Warehouse revenues climbed by 18 percent.

Pretax profit for the group came in at £56 million, compared to £14 million last year.  Fixed line revenue was up 49%, helped by progress in the deployment of its LLU broadband network.

Previously, Carphone had to offer many customers a BT wholesale broadband connection when it launched its ‘free’ broadband offer as local exchanges were not yet unbundled and available to customers. 

The group made swift progress over the year in the unbundling of BT exchanges and it now has 55% of the total broadband base on LLU unbundled exchanges.  All customers on their own network produce profit rather than a loss when they were on BT’s wholesale network.  Carphone said it expects 70% to be transferred over by the end of the financial year.

The company added 215,000 net new broadband customers.  The number of AOL customers fell slightly, but stabilised following the release of the free laptop and AOL broadband offer.  It now has a total of 2.5 million broadband customers.

Things are set to look positive for Carphone going forward with the exclusive release of the iPhone in 786 stores from tomorrow.  Outside of the UK, the group announced a major expansion in the US.  In its joint venture with Best Buy, it plans to open 1,000 new mobile outlets by 2009.

Charles Dunstone, Chief Executive Officer, commented: “We have made good progress across the Group in the first half.  The Retail business continues to prosper across Europe, and we are announcing today a major roll-out of our US venture.  In our UK Fixed Line operations, the majority of our broadband customers are now on our own network, with profitability and quality of service improving all the time.”