Dixons Carphone Christmas trading dragged down by mobile
Dixons Carphone’s trading results for the 10-week period ended 4 January 2020 has been dragged down by a 9% slump in mobile like-for-like revenue.
Despite this, the retailer saw group revenue increase by 2%.
Like-for-like revenue in electricals also increased by 2% in the UK and Ireland, driven by strong sales of TVs, gaming, smart tech and small domestic appliances. It also reported a 7% increase in online sales in this category.
Alex Baldock, group chief executive, said: “We’ve had a good peak in a weak UK market and we’re on track to deliver what we promised for this year, and with our longer-term transformation.
“Peak saw us continue to invest in our strategic initiatives with encouraging results. Credit and services adoption rates increased, online sales grew strongly, and our newly remodelled stores performed well.”
He added: “Coupled with our unambiguous ‘You won’t get it cheaper. Full stop price promise, alongside better availability and delivery, this led to big improvements in customer satisfaction and strong market share gains in electricals.”
It comes after the group was fined £500,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) over a data breach.
Baldock said the company was “very sorry for any inconvenience this historic incident caused to [its] customers”.
He added: “When we found the unauthorised access to data, we promptly launched an investigation, added extra security measures and contained the incident. We duly notified regulators and the police and communicated with all our customers. We have no confirmed evidence of any customers suffering fraud or financial loss as a result.
“We have upgraded our detection and response capabilities and, as the ICO acknowledges, we have made significant investment in our Information Security systems and processes.”
