Carphone isn't bovvered by Vodafone deal

IN AN internal memo to his employees, Carphone Warehouse UK boss, Andrew Harrison, has put a brave face on the loss of Vodafone contract business to Phones 4U, yesterday.

"Vodafone approached us to do the same deal and we would and could not go anywhere near it," he told staff. "It goes against everything we stand for."

Anyway, the CPW UK CEO argued that Vodafone represented no more than 10 per cent of its subscription - rather than prepaid - business. "This figure will easily be made up with better offers," Harrison asserted.

The most cutting comment Harrison made was to imply that Phones 4 U has guaranteed to give Vodafone a large percentage of its subscription sales every month. That would mean pushing Vodafone's contract tariffs even if they were uncompetitive.

By contrast Harrison maintains CPW is built on the fundamental principle of 'impartial' advice on which the company won't ever be compromised.

The trouble for CPW is that the UK mobile phone market was built around intermediaries reselling handsets to the end user.

Now that the market is deregulated, the operators aren't keen to hand over the 'easy money' to third parities. Their next target - to dispense with handset subsidies - will prove a much more difficult objective to achieve.

A report in The Times hints that another UK operator, France Telecom's Orange, might be tempted to drop CPW, too. Luckily, Mobile magazine is carrying a story qoting Harrison as saying, "We have signed [a new deal with T-Mobile] and are happily trading with them." µ

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Vodafone dumps Carphone Warehouse