Dixons Carphone CEO says firm to benefit from collapse of Phones4U - UPDATE

Electrical retailer Dixons Carphone said it expects to gain from the collapse of Phones4U as it set out plans to double the size of the business in the next three to four years.

Chief executive Sebastian James told investors and analysts attending a strategy day that he believed the departure from the market a few weeks ago of the mobile phone retailer, which went into administration after Vodafone and EE ended supply contracts, was one of the longer-term opportunities that the company could benefit from.

Dixons Carphone is replacing Phones4U concessions in its Currys and PC World stores with Carphone Warehouse "stores within stores" and is taking on at least 800 staff from Phones4U staff to help it staff them and its own outlets.

The group said it hoped to have about 30 Carphone concessions in its shops in the next few weeks before pausing their expansion to allow for Christmas. It expects to have Carphone concessions in all its stores by October next year.

Carphone Warehouse UK chief executive Graham Stapleton said the company had a "real opportunity" to cash in on the market consolidation triggered by the demise of Phones4U.

The group plans to convert just under 160 Phones4U concessions to Carphone Warehouse outlets before Christmas, with 30 refits taking place this week and 40 next week.

He said there were now about 5,500 former Phones4U staff looking for work, which he said would give Dixons a big chance to bring the best of that talent into the company.

About 1,700 Phones4U staff had applied for jobs at Dixons Carphone and the group had already taken on more than 500 of those people in addition to the 800 who transferred after the administration.

Phones4U had 2.4m post- and pre-pay connections annually and the company is hoping to target those customers, particularly Phones4U's younger market.

Stapleton said: "We have a huge opportunity to create value from our merger and from market consolidation."

Management is "thinking very hard" about how to operate in mainland European markets such as France, Spain and Germany, James said.

The company also said it hoped to save £80m "rather faster than expected" but there was still more to do.

"There is always execution risk until the job is done," James said.

James said he believed Dixons Carphone could double the size of its business over the next three to four years.

He added: "We think the business is trading well at the moment and long may it last."

Shares in Dixons Carphone fell 0.9p or 0.24% to 367.6p at 11:01 in London.