Europe's largest independent mobile phone seller, Carphone Warehouse, managed to avoid an expected slump in sales to post respectable figures for the three months to the end of June.
Like-for-like sales at CPW Europe were down 2% although total sales including new stores rose 5.7% to £776m.
The key UK business is doing well from so-called post-pay growth, which is when consumers sign up to annual contracts. In mainland Europe there has been a weakness in the pre-pay market, driven by a dearth of attractively priced smartphones.
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The group's joint venture, Virgin Mobile France, did well, posting year-on-year revenue growth of 13% to leave quarterly revenues at €122m. The business now has 1,925,000 customers.
In its trading update, CPW sticks to its full year guidance.
The market had been expecting a much worse performance given the Eurozone crisis, consequently Carphone Warehouse shares were up strongly; at 10:53 the stock was 4.23% up on yesterday's close.
BS
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