Carphone Warehouse to close all of its Sussex standalone stores

Carphone Warehouse is closing all of its standalone stores – including across Sussex.
Carphone WarehouseCarphone Warehouse
Carphone Warehouse

The mobile phone shop has announced it is shutting 531 of its stores from April 3, leaving just those inside Currys PC Worlds.

It is understood 2,900 people will be made redundant.

Group chief executive Alex Baldock said the decision was made due to ‘unsustainable’ losses of £90m expected this year.

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He said in a statement: “Today’s tough decision is an essential part of that, the next step in making our UK mobile business a success for customers, colleagues and other shareholders.

“Clearly, with unsustainable losses of £90m expected this year, mobile is currently holding back the whole business.

“There’s never an easy time for an announcement like this, but the turbulent times ahead only underline the importance of acting now.”

Mr Baldock said: “I don’t underestimate how upsetting this news will be for our colleagues, and we’ll treat everyone with honesty, respect and care.

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“Customers are increasingly heading, not just to our large and growing online business, but into our big stores, where they can find all the experts and tech - mobiles, computers, TVs, smart tech, appliances, gaming and all the rest - they need.

“But they can’t find all this in the small mobile-only stores that are one twentieth of the size; they’re visiting these less and these stores are losing more money as a result.

“That’s why we’re committed to our more than 300 big stores around the UK, why we’re investing tens of millions of pounds in them and in the thousands of expert colleagues who work in them. But it’s also why sadly we have to close the small stores.”

A statement on the Carphone Warehouse website says: “We would love to keep our stand-alone stores open, but the way people shop has changed, and we need to change too.”

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