Dixon Carphone is to shut all of its 531 standalone Carphone Warehouse stores.
The closure will reduce the retailer’s total UK selling space by 8% and is part of its strategy to turnaround its UK mobile business.
Dixons said the changes were an “essential step in making mobile a sustainable and profitable category” within the group. It will now sell its mobile products through its 305 Currys PC World stores and online. The restructuring is expected to save around £200m.
The 531 stores will close on 3 April and will lead to some 2,900 redundancies across the Dixons Carphone business, which expects to post a £90m loss for the year.
The changes do not affect the business’s 70 Carphone Warehouses in the Republic of Ireland or any operations internationally.
Chief executive Alex Baldock said: “Mobile is currently holding back the whole business. There is never an easy time for an announcement like this, but the turbulent times ahead only underline the importance of acting now.”
The retailer said that it had not yet seen any impact from the outbreak of coronavirus outside of its Dixons Travel stores, but that it was aware that all stores could experience a “significant reduction in sales in the months ahead”. The Dixons Travel business has been “severely impacted by a significant fall in passenger numbers”, which the group said would hit the division’s profit by around £5m.
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