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Carphone Warehouse has vowed to carry on with its plans to open Best Buy stores in the UK despite the current economic downturn after it reported a 13 per cent increase in revenues during the third quarter.
"We remain committed to pursuing long term growth opportunities in both our retail and telecoms business," Carphone Warehouse chief executive officer Charles Dunstone said in a statement. "We plan to open our first Best Buy branded big box stores in the UK later this year."
In a sign of its intentions, the retailer said that it was planning to build up a £150m warchest to spearhead its expansion plans for both its retail and telecoms operations.
Dunstone also vowed to continue the retailer’s push into the laptop arena with plans to roll out its range to more of the country before the end of the year, spearheaded by the launch or refurbishing of stores to its new format, the first of which opened at Westfield London at the end of last year.
"[We] will continue to push into new markets such as laptops with the roll-out of new format stores," stated Dunstone. He added: "The response from customers [about the new product ranges] has been very encouraging and we will continue to introduce this format to new and existing stores in 2009."
The retailer saw revenues increase 13 per cent to £1,010m, with like-for-like revenues up 6.5 per cent across Europe. UK like-for-like sales were up by 8.3 per cent, despite poor Christmas results from its major consumer electronics rivals such as Argos and DSGi.
