The Carphone Warehouse

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Company logo

Main office, in Acton, West London

The Carphone Warehouse Group PLC (LSE: [CPW]), known as The Carphone Warehouse, is (as of 2004) Europe's largest mobile phone retailer, with over 1,300 stores across Europe. They are based in the United Kingdom. Outside the UK & Ireland, the retailer is named The Phone House.

The company was founded in 1989 by current CEO Charles Dunstone from £6,000 savings. In the 1990s it became famous 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.

They have been the sponsors for the UK's version of Big Brother since series 5 in 2004. In 2006 they also sponsored Celebrity Big Brother and related Celebrity Big Brother shows on Channel 4.

TalkTalk

In 2003, The Carphone Warehouse launched a residential fixed line service called TalkTalk in several European countries, and have since expanded this to provide line rental and broadband internet access to their TalkTalk customers. They are also a Mobile Virtual Network Operator in several European countries. In the United Kingdom, they operate MVNOs under three brands: Fresh (aimed at traditional prepay customers), Mobile World (aimed at expatriates, and providing cheap rates to international destinations), and TalkTalk (aimed at fixed line customers of the same brand, and offering cheap or free calls between fixed and mobile lines operated by the company).

In December 2005 TalkTalk purchased competitors One.Tel and Tele2, increasing the previous number of fixed-line connections from 920,000 customers to 2.4 million customers (and also adding smaller numbers of mobile and broadband customers), thus becoming the number 1 competitor to BT with 10% of all fixed lines in the UK.

In the same year TalkTalk broadband became the 8th largest supplier of ADSL on a BT line. The Carphone Warehouse have reported sales growth of 28% from 2003-04 financial year.

The Carphone Warehouse has gone on to become the number one mobile communications retailer on the back of the success of its various divisions. This growth is expected to help the company expand further and eventually join the FTSE 100.

External links

• [Group website]
• [Consumer website]

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