“The UK’s leading youthful mobile phone retailer on both the high street and online, and home of the latest and greatest smartphones”
Phones 4u began trading in 1996 when it was part of the Caudwell Group, founded in 1987. Currently owned by private equity firm BC Partners, who acquired the business in April 2011, Phones 4u is now one of the leading independent mobile phone retailers on the high street.
Phones 4u focuses on a youthful, fashion and technology passionate customer demographic, who have a high appetite for the latest technology. As a result, Phones 4u is a preferred launch partner of global mobile manufacturers and is home of the latest and greatest mobile phones, selling all major networks and handset brands. Proud to be the official UK retail partner for the Samsung Mobile PIN pop-up experiences opening across London in the summer of 2012, and Samsung’s exclusive retail partner for its Samsung experience Zone at Phones 4u in Oxford Street London, Phones 4u have a proven track record of successfully launching and selling Samsung devices, offer the widest range of live Samsung handsets in the UK and are the Samsung product experts on the high street.
Phones 4u is a truly unique brand within the mobile sector, and is recognised for its success in appealing to the hard to reach youth audience through its stand-out marketing, engaging social media and online activity, and its fashion-led market leading smartphone range.
Passionate about delivering an excellent customer experience in store, Phones 4u has made its customers’ needs the foundation of its business behaviour. It was the first mobile retailer to lead the industry in making its retail teams accountable for the way they sell, and significant investment in the training and development of its people along with a ‘unique to the high street’ customer consultation process, delivers quality staff, unrivalled mobile expertise and advice tailored to individual customers’ needs.
In July 2010, following a successful trial, Phones 4u announced a partnership with Dixons Retail, which saw the arrival of Phones 4u branded areas in all Currys Megastores and a number of Dixons’ combined 2-in-1 stores across the UK. Both companies’ combined reputation, expertise and complimentary approach to customer service, choice and value have made the partnership an unrivalled success, and continues to bring customers even more products and mobile experiences.
We continue to innovate in response to listening to customer needs – and do our best to exceed them – through delivering unique and innovative services like 4u WiFi and JUMP, which both launched in 2011 and 2012. We even launch our own MVNO in March 2013 called LIFE Mobile.
Phones 4u has over 680 stores across the UK, 150 of which are “store in store” formats in Curry’s and PC World stores. 100 new stores were opened during 2012 alone, and the same level of expansion and growth is planned for 2013.
Financial Reports
Phones 4u Ltd is part of the Phones4u Finance plc group of companies, which was acquired by BC Partners from Providence Equity in April 2011. The latest Directors’ Report and Financial Statements for Phones 4u Finance Plc for the period ended 31 December 2011 can be downloaded here and an explanatory note on the 2011 Financial Statements can be downloaded here. An update for the 6 months to June 2012 can be downloaded here.
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Key facts
- Phones 4u has over 680 stores on the UK high street
- Phones 4u has over 150 store-in-stores in Currys/PC World as part of a commercial adventure with Dixons Retail
- Phones 4u opened 100 stores in 2012 alone, with half of those adding to its extensive portfolio of store-in-stores with partner Dixons Retail
- We continue to grow our retail footprint and create new jobs on the high street, as well as continue to improve our in-store environment
- 2012 full year ‘total sales’ were up 20.7% with full-year like-for-like sales up 11.9%
- Online sales continue to grow strongly with revenue up 47.3% in December year-on-year and up 73.2% for the full year (2012)
- Strong growth at Phones 4u has primarily been driven by contract volumes which were up 34.8% year-on-year in December 2012 and up 26.8% for the full year
- Phones 4u has over 5,000 employees
- Over three quarters of Phones 4u customers say they would recommend the mobile retailer
- Phones 4u is one of the number one UK ‘mobile brands’ on Facebook with currently 560,000+ page ‘likes’
- Phones 4u has invested over £10million in the upskilling and training of its employees
- Phones 4u runs one of the largest Ofsted accredited retail apprenticeship programmes in the UK
- We continue to invest heavily in our people and their personal as well as their career development and reward our people based on a range of measures focused on delivering an excellent customer experience in store
- Our most recent ATL campaign, ‘Missing our deals will haunt you’, drove increased awareness, consideration and advocacy and was our most successful through the line marketing campaign to date
