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The Carphone Warehouse Group PLC (LSE: CPW), known as The Carphone Warehouse, claim to be Europe's largest independent mobile phone retailer, with over 1,700 stores across Europe. They are based in the United Kingdom. Outside the UK and the Republic of Ireland, the retailer is named The Phone House. For 2006/07 the Company reported revenues of £3,991.5m[1].
[edit] HistoryThe company was co-founded in 1989, when most portable phones were too bulky to carry and called car phones, by current CEO Charles Dunstone (together with David Ross[2]) from £6,000 savings. [edit] Timeline
[edit] Divisions[edit] TalkTalkTalkTalk is the home telecommunications branch of The Carphone Warehouse. Carphone Warehouse also own Opal Telecom, a business to business telecoms provider with a popular switch. It may be construed as a conflict of interest that some of the competitors of TalkTalk such as Toucan (part of IDT Direct Limited), use this switch. [edit] E2Save, The Phone Spot, Mobiles.co.uk, One Stop Phone Shop and Vanilla MobileMobile phone e-tailers e2save, The Phone Spot, Mobiles.co.uk[1] and OneStopPhoneShop are separately managed divisions within Carphone Warehouse. Vanilla mobile fulfillment service is the distribution side of Carphone Warehouse, and is based within e2save.com [edit] Geek SquadIn October 2006 it was announced that Geek Squad would be launching in the UK in a 50/50 joint venture between Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy.[11] Geek Squad currently offers 24 hour over-the-phone technology support and in-home technical support in the North-West of England and Greater London with surrounding area. In 2008 the Carphone Warehouse is increasing its joint venture with Best Buy by launching Best Buy Mobile as a "store inside a store" inside of Best Buy's or as a separate store located by Best Buy stores throughout the United States. The labor will be split between the two companies. In the same business venture Carphone Warehouse was split into four parts (half retail and half broadband) and one quarter sold to Best Buy for a sum nearing 1.1 billion.[12] [edit] RepairsThe Carphone Warehouse has the largest Mobile Phone repair service in the UK, and repair centres in all of the countries it is actively trading in. [edit] Marketing campaigns
In the 1990s Carphone Warehouse became well-known for using the Stereo MCs' "Connected" in its advertisements. Mowbli, the little mobile phone, is Carphone Warehouse's mascot. He appears mainly in radio advertisements with his friend Ed (voiced by the Irish comedian Ed Byrne), and also on television advertisements. Mowbli was dropped in 2008 and replaced by hand drawn characters and a hand drawn logo to "Bring back it's image of Simple Impartial Advice". [edit] The X Factor (UK)As of 19 June 2007, the Carphone Warehouse became the official sponsor of the fourth series of The X Factor. The sponsorship deal stands to last for three years. The Carphone Warehouse will also be the sponsor of its various spin-offs, including The Xtra Factor.[13] [edit] Big Brother (UK)The company were the sponsors for the UK's version of Big Brother since series 5 in 2004, until 2007. In 2006 they also sponsored Celebrity Big Brother and related Celebrity Big Brother shows on Channel 4. On 17 January 2007, in response to alleged racism in Celebrity Big Brother, Charles Dunstone said: "We are talking to Channel 4. The sponsorship is constantly under review. Clearly we are against racism. Most people understand that the person who has their name associated with the programme does not necessarily condone the content. [14][15] On the 18 January 2007, Carphone Warehouse announced that it had suspended its sponsorship of the show as Channel 4 had not taken sufficient action in response to the alleged racism in the show.[16] On the 8 March 2007, the company permanently dropped its sponsorship of the show.[17] [edit] Acquisitions[edit] AOL UKOn 10 October 2006, Carphone Warehouse announced the purchase of parts of AOL UK for £370 m.[8][18][19] This makes Carphone Warehouse the 3rd largest broadband provider, with over 2 million customers, and the largest LLU Operator with more than 150,000 LLU customers.[20][21] The acquisition process completed on the 9 December 2006 It has also been stated in their press release[8] that AOL UK Audience business will remain a separate organization and brand with a revenue sharing agreement. It is not yet clear if the AOL UK Access business (the broadband part) will be fully integrated into CPW. AOL UK customers will not be automatically transferred to Talk Talk.[22] AOL is consulting on job cuts. The Times stated "AOL has begun to consult on the cuts, with 100 of a total 500 UK jobs expected to go by Christmas."[23] In line with legal requirements, AOL UK has notified the DTI that redundancies are planned. The Press Gazette stated "The company has informed the DTI that it is possible that it will make more than 100 redundancies".[24] On the 1 November 2006, it was made public that Karen Thompson, AOL UK CEO and President AOL Europe, had resigned and had been succeeded by Carlo d'Asaro Biondo (previously CEO of AOL France). Karen was responsible for launching AOL UK in 1996.[25] 
It was made public on 14 December 2006 that Carlo d'Asaro Biondo had resigned after only six weeks in his new role. Philip Rowley (the chairman of AOL Europe) has taken over on a temporary basis. The Guardian states: the management turmoil has put the European operation in "freefall" and created a "massive vacuum", according to one AOL insider. The same article estimates that 5,000 AOL jobs are to go world-wide (25% of staff) with a significant number from AOL UK.[27] In January 2007 AOL UK is re-branded as AOL Broadband. [edit] Changes to the ServiceIn an early press statement, The Carphone Warehouse stated they had "no plans to change the service in any way at all," but, since January, anyone heavily using P2P applications have had their downstream bandwidth limited to 50 kbit/s during peak times (6pm-midnight, Sunday to Thursday).[28] When users noticed this and complained, some were offered 30 days to cancel their contract free of charge.[29] [edit] Marketing offers and problemsIn the third quarter of 2007, AOL Broadband caused a stir by offering a free laptop computer (and eventually a free Playstation 3) to all new customers signing up for a 24 month contract with its AOL Wireless Plus broadband package. While sceptics looked for a catch, industry experts conceded[30] that the offer was reasonable, despite the necessity to sign up to an AOL Talk home phone package in order to be eligible for the free laptop. While an option to not take a bundled home phone package was available, the price increased by £10; further offers include a free Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii in addition to other promotional items. During Summer 2008, the transition of AOL's systems to CPW crippled their ordering system, leaving many customers waiting several months to have their lines provisioned for broadband. Affected customers were free to cancel their contracts, but had their problems confounded when inefficiencies in the refund provision system left some customers out of pocket with neither broadband, laptop nor their money back for several months. [edit] E2Save, The Phone Spot, Mobiles.co.uk and One Stop Phone ShopThe Carphone Warehouse has acquired four former competitors, mobile phone e-tailers e2save, The Phone Spot, Mobiles.co.uk[2], and OneStopPhoneShop. Orders are fulfilled through the Carphone Warehouse, but each company has its own terms and conditions and, significantly, rules regarding promotions. [edit] Marketing offers and problemsThese subsidiaries offered 'cash back' redemption on entering into a contract; customers must send in bills and vouchers to claim back line rental paid to the network. This has proved problematic for many customers. In the case of the OneStopPhoneShop and e2save[3] customers have had a history of problems in claiming their cash back. OFCOM, the regulator, has admitted receiving many complaints about the behaviour of these two companies but no action has yet been taken.[31] [edit] Data protectionDuring 2005 TalkTalk's proactive sales techniques drew criticism in the press when it was accused of practising "slamming" to win new customers. [32] Customers who bought mobile phones from Carphone Warehouse retail outlets alleged that their landline accounts were subsequently switched without their consent [33]. On the 15 August 2006, the Information Commissioner's Office issued Preliminary Enforcement Notices for breaches of PECR (The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations) against Carphone Warehouse and TalkTalk for making marketing calls to people who are signed up to the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) or people who have asked that the company make no further calls to them.[34][35] On 28 October 2006 in a Times interview Richard Thomas, Britain's Information Commissioner, stated:[36]
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[edit] See also[edit] Trivia
[edit] External links
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