Dixons Carphone, Sprint focus on Honeybee platform deployment

Shares in Dixons Carphone fell more than 1% as it and Sprint mutually agreed to end their stores joint venture, with the focus of their collaboration now being on the deployment of the Honeybee platform.

In July 2015, Dixons Carphone's Connected World Services (CWS) division and Sprint agreed to open and manage a number of Sprint-branded stores in the US and provide certain consultancy services to Sprint.

In March 2016 they entered into a further agreement to deploy Honeybee into the Sprint retail estate.

"In light of the changing US mobile market landscape and Sprint's review of its own distribution strategy, the companies have reached mutual agreement that CWS will focus on the deployment of the Honeybee platform across the entire Sprint estate and that Sprint will acquire the CWS 50% share of the distribution joint venture," said Dixons.

"We have enjoyed working with Sprint to accelerate their store opening programme over the last two years and have developed an estate and a pipeline to help support their ambitious growth plans," said Andrew Harrison, Dixons Carphone's deputy group chief executive.

"With the significant shift in the US mobile market, now is the right time to transfer these stores to Sprint, and to concentrate on our exciting software business, Honeybee," he added.

"It has been a privilege to work so closely with Marcelo and his excellent team as they turn around this amazing business and we look forward to making Honeybee as successful for Sprint as it is for us."

At 15:07 BST, shares in Dixons Carphone were down 1.55% to 312.3p each, and then off earlier lows around 304.7p.