The Carphone Warehouse Group PLC (lse: CPW), known as The Carphone Warehouse, claims to be Europe's largest independent mobile phone retailer, with over 1,700 stores across Europe. They are based in the United Kingdom. Outside the UK and the Republic of Ireland, the retailer is named The Phone House.

History

The company was co-founded in 1989, when most portable phones were too bulky to carry and called car phones, by current CEO Charles Dunstone. Dunstone put £6,000 into the company from his savings, and then called his old school friend and Chartered Accountant David Ross, who agreed to become Finance Director. Based originally in Dunstone's rented flat on the Marylebone Road, London, four years later the company had grown to 20 stores. Now also trading as The Phone House, Carphone Warehouse is Europe's largest independent mobile phone retailer.

While Dunstone became the public face of the Carphone Warehouse, Ross (described by Dunstone as his "secret weapon"), developed and drove the high street retail footprint of the company by buying Tandy in the UK. Dunstone approached old customer Guy Johnson of NEC UK - later described by one City analyst as "the Ringo Starr of Carphone Warehouse" for being in the right place at the right time - to become the third partner, later taking up the role of Logistics and Distribution director.

Ross led the footprint development of the company, under The Phone House brand, across Europe and the United States. When Ross led the IPO of Carphone Warehouse in 2000, it had been so successful that the partners had not needed to borrow or involve outsiders: Dunstone owned half, Ross a third, and Johnson most of the rest.

Only Johnson of the three partners had a family, and having according to media reports becoming less enamoured by the Ross-led European expansion of the organisation, sold the majority of his stake in 2001 and retired with his young family to his holiday home in Portugal.

While Ross had been joint-Chief Operating Officer with Dunstone from 1990 and 2003, where as Dunstone stayed with the business that he still runs today, Ross started to give up his executive position from 2003. Ross became deputy chairman in July 2005, and by 2008 was a non-executive director. Ross resigned from the board in December 2008 over an issue with shares.

TalkTalk

main: TalkTalk (telecommunications company) TalkTalk is the home telecommunications branch of The Carphone Warehouse.

Carphone Warehouse also own Opal Telecom, a business to business telecoms provider with a popular switch. It may be construed as a conflict of interest that some of the competitors of TalkTalk such as Toucan (part of IDT Direct Limited), use this switch.