LONDON - The Carphone Warehouse Group PLC has unveiled ambitious plans to corner a slice of the market share in the broadband arena in 2006. At the same time the company also announced the results for the 26 weeks to Oct 1 2005, which show that the pre-tax profits stand at £40.1 million.
This is a massive jump of 36 percent over last year's profits. Total sales amounted to £1.29 billion, an increase of 25 percent over those at the same time last year. The average earnings per share before amortisation of acquisition intangibles was 3.15 pence as compared with 2.33 pence at the same point last year.
“The combination of these factors creates a very strong customer proposition and as a result, connections growth has been ahead of our expectations,” the group said in a statement. Also the dividend was up from 0.55 last year to 0.75 this time. Total like-for-like sales increased by 7.5 percent over the first half.
Carphone's broadband plans would cost it somewhere in the region of £10 million to £15 million a year. "Our strong commitment to the UK broadband market, announced today, further builds on our foundations to become the clear number one alternative telecoms provider," said chief executive Charles Dunstone.
Carphone said that the broadband plans would be channeled through its Opal distribution network, which it acquired in 2002. Until now, Opal has been used for corporate and home fixed-line telephony segments. Carphone hoped that with this move Opal “is set to stimulate strong customer growth and improved profitability over the medium term."
The reports of a strong first half showing drove Carphone shares up 2.6 percent to 203¾ pence.
Posted
on : Fri, 04 Nov 2005 13:10 GMT | Business News
By : Mike Lawson
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