The Carphone Warehouse Group PLC (lse: CPW), known as The Carphone Warehouse, claim 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.

For 2006/07 the Company reported revenues of £3,991.5m.

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 (together with David Ross) from £6,000 savings.

TalkTalk

main: TalkTalk 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.

E2Save, The Phone Spot, Mobiles.co.uk, One Stop Phone Shop and Vanilla Mobile

Mobile phone e-tailers e2save, The Phone Spot, Mobiles.co.uk1 and OneStopPhoneShop are separately managed divisions within Carphone Warehouse. Vanilla mobile fulfillment service is the distribution side of Carphone Warehouse, and is based within e2save.com

Geek Squad

In October 2006 it was announced that Geek Squad would be launching in the UK in a 50/50 joint venture between Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy.

Geek Squad currently offers 24 hour over-the-phone technology support and in-home technical support in the North-West of England and Greater London with surrounding area.

In 2008 the Carphone Warehouse is increasing its joint venture with Best Buy by launching Best Buy Mobile as a "store inside a store" inside of Best Buy's or as a separate store located by Best Buy stores throughout the United States. The labor will be split between the two companies.

Repairs

The Carphone Warehouse has the largest Mobile Phone repair service in the UK, and repair centres in all of the countries it is actively trading in.

In the 1990s Carphone Warehouse became well-known for using the Stereo MCs' "Connected" in its advertisements.

Mowbli, the little mobile phone, is Carphone Warehouse's mascot. He appears mainly in radio advertisements with his friend Ed (voiced by the Irish comedian Ed Byrne), and also on television advertisements.

The X Factor (UK)

As of 19 June 2007, the Carphone Warehouse became the official sponsor of the fourth series of The X Factor. The sponsorship deal stands to last for three years. The Carphone Warehouse will also be the sponsor of its various spin-offs, including The Xtra Factor.

Big Brother (UK)

The company were the sponsors for the UK's version of Big Brother since series 5 in 2004, until 2007. In 2006 they also sponsored Celebrity Big Brother and related Celebrity Big Brother shows on Channel 4.