The Carphone Warehouse Group

The Carphone Warehouse is Europe's leading independent retailer of mobile phones and services, with over 1,500 stores in 10 countries.

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Our History

1994
The company establishes Carphone Warehouse Insurance to provide an additional value-added service to customers, including the prompt provision of replacement phones.

1996
Under the Phone House brands, the company opens its first stores outside the UK, in Paris and Dublin.

1997
The Phone House launches in Madrid.

1998
The company acquires GEAB Teleshop, a leading independent mobile phone retailer in Sweden, and Comprotoel Groep, a Dutch mobile phone wholesaling and retailing business. Both acquisitions give The Carphone Warehouse a significant presence in their respective markets.

1999
In January 1999, the company acquires the UK business of Tandy, the general electrical goods and mobile phone retailer with 268 stores spread across the UK. The deal transforms the scale of the UK business.

The company acquires 45 stores in France in September via the acquisition of FNAC Telecom, making the French business the leading independent mobile phone retailer in France.

In November the company acquires Polirent, a company with 6 stores in the Lisbon area, as a first move into Portugal. This move is subsequently complemented by three further small acquisitions.

In December, Value Telecom, The Carphone Warehouse’s own network or MVNO, is launched.

2000
In February 2000, the company acquires ACJM SL, a Spanish specialist mobile phone retailer with 46 stores trading under the Viva Voce fascia.

In April the company significantly increases its presence in Germany through the acquisition of Otto Boenicke, a chain of 97 CTN stores.

The company consolidates its market position in The Netherlands through the acquisition of the 20 store Road Phone chain in June.

In 2000 The Carphone Warehouse also acquires Cellcom, a UK provider of billing, customer call and messaging services. This represents its first move into Facilities Management (‘FMS’) and a significant extension of the existing retail strategy.

2001
In May the company continues to build its Telecom Services division through the acquisition of CMC, one of the leading mobile telecoms services businesses in France, which manages over 600,000 customers on behalf of Orange and SFR.

2002
In November 2002 the company announces the acquisition of Opal Telecom PLC, an alternative network operator providing fixed line solutions to the business market.

2003
In February the company launches talktalk, its new residential fixed line telecoms service, as a direct competitor to BT.

In April the company reaches an agreement with Sainsbury’s, the UK supermarket chain, to provide mobile and fixed line services to Sainsbury’s customers.

In June the company acquires Hutchison Telecommunications GmbH, a German service provider with over 500,000 subscription customers.

2004
In March we made our first move into the continental European fixed line market with the acquisition of Xtra in Spain. We followed this up with the acquisition of NTel in Switzerland in April, with a view to introducing TalkTalk in a number of countries across Europe by the end of the year

2005

April 1st saw the launch of Mobile World – an industry first mobile service which allows customers to make cheap international calls from a mobile phone. International start from as little as 5p per minute. In December 2005 we acquired two of our major residential fixed line competitors, Onetel and Tele2 UK. As a result we doubled our share of the UK residential market to 10%.

2006

On the 11th April, we were the first company in the UK to launch free broadband to nearly 70% of the UK population. We reached an agreement with Time Warner Inc. to acquire AOL’s internet access business in the UK. As a result of this acquisition, we became the number 3 broadband provider in the UK.