Carphone Warehouse Plc, one of Europe's largest independent mobile phone retailers with outlets throughout Ireland, announced an 81 per cent surge to its total group Christmas sales today. The company said retail and online connections grew 70 percent to 569,000 during the period.
Total group sales surged 81 percent to euro 193.9 million($182.8 million) in the four weeks to December 30, compared to the same period in 1999 and the company said it was confident of achieving full year results in line with market expectations.
The shares dropped somewhat on the London exchange this morning, although the stock had risen 11.5 percent since December 21, as the rocketing sales of mobile phones over Christmas became well-documented.
"It was a bullish trading statement and short-term they had a good run-up beforehand so it is clearly profit-taking", said one dealer.
The company, which floated on the London Stock Exchange last July and now has 1,078 stores across Europe, said retail gross margins increased 1.5 percent in the 13 weeks to December 30, compared to the same period in the previous year.
"We continue to see strong growth, that has been demonstrated by these figures, and there is a faster and faster replacement cycle for people with mobile phones - they are becoming very fashion conscious", chief executive Mr Charles Dunstone told reporters.
Mr Dunstone said the margins growth during the third quarter was due to effective management of the group's relationships with network operators and equipment operators, close control of stock levels and the increased scale of its European operations.
Despite recent warnings of lower demand for mobiles in 2001 from U.S. manufacturer Motorola and Finland's Nokia, Mr Dunstone said: "Carphone Warehouse continued to see extremely strong demand in its stores".
Reuters