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Currys plc

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This article is about the parent company formed as Dixons Carphone following the 2014 merger. For the retail chain it owns, see Currys.

Currys plc
Company typePublic limited company
LSE: CURY
FTSE 250 Component
IndustryConsumer electronics
PredecessorDixons Carphone
Dixons Retail
Carphone Warehouse Group
Founded7 August 2014; 10 years ago (2014-08-07)
HeadquartersLondon, England, UK
Number of locations
900 stores (2021)[1]
Area served
United Kingdom
Ireland
Mainland Europe
Key people
Ian Livingston
(Chairman)
Alex Baldock
(Group Chief Executive)
RevenueIncrease £10,344 million (2021)[2]
Increase £147 million (2021)[2]
Increase £12 million (2021)[2]
Number of employees
35,000 (2022)[1]
Websitewww.currysplc.com

Currys plc, formerly Dixons Carphone plc, is a British multinational electrical and telecommunications retailer and services company headquartered in London, England.[3] It was formed on 7 August 2014 by the merger of Dixons Retail and Carphone Warehouse Group. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange, and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

The company operates under a number of brands in the United Kingdom, Ireland and mainland Europe. These include Currys in the United Kingdom, Dixons Travel in airports in the United Kingdom and Oslo; Currys in the Republic of Ireland; Elkjøp in Norway; Elgiganten/Gigantti in the other Nordic countries; and Kotsovolos in Greece.

History

Following shareholder agreement in July 2014, the £3.8 billion merged entity was launched on 7 August 2014; on the first day of trading the shares in the merged business were owned 50:50 by the former Dixons Retail and former Carphone Warehouse shareholders.[4][5] Carphone Warehouse's Sir Charles Dunstone was appointed chairman, and Sebastian James became Chief Executive.[6]

On the first day of trading, the company opened Carphone Warehouse concessions in seven PC World or Currys stores.[7] In December 2016, Dixons and SSE, a domestic energy supplier, announced a partnership to provide "connected home" services in the United Kingdom.[8]

In January 2018, Sebastian James resigned as Chief Executive to become president and managing director of Boots UK.[9] Alex Baldock left his previous role as Chief Executive of Shop Direct (the company responsible for brands such as Very and Littlewoods) to succeed James as Chief Executive of Dixons Carphone.[10]

In March 2019, Dixons Carphone was given a £29.1m fine from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for misselling its service of Geek Squad. The FCA found that the company's staff were trained to sell the service to customers who already had an insurance cover.[11] During the period under investigation, between 1 December 2008 and 30 June 2015, Carphone Warehouse sold Geek Squad policies worth more than £444.7m.[12]

Dixons Carphone did not contest the FCA's findings and qualified for a 30% discount, reducing the fine from £41.6m.[13] In June 2019, shares in Dixons Carphone fell almost 20% following a significant decline in full year profits, mainly caused by consumers' growing delay in upgrading their mobile phones.[14]

On 3 April 2020, the company permanently closed 531 stand-alone Carphone Warehouse stores that were solely focused on telephone devices. Subsequently, 3,000 job positions related to the affected stores were cut. According to the firm, the reason behind the closure of the stores was the online shift of customers and a lesser extent of phone upgrades. Carphone Warehouse shops continue providing telephone services.[15] Following the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, on 4 August 2020, Dixons Carphone announced additional 800 job cuts in order to reduce the costs caused by the pandemic. The company also announced its plans to re-organise its operations in their bigger stores. Regarding the decision, the firm's chief operating officer stated that they wanted "to empower store leadership teams, create a flatter management structure and make it easy for customers to shop with us."[16]

The business was renamed from Dixons Carphone to Currys plc in September 2021. The Currys brand also replaced the company's PC World, Team Knowhow and Carphone Warehouse brands.[17]

Operations

The company owns the following brands:[18]

United Kingdom and Ireland

Northern Europe

  • Elgiganten – ("Electrical Giant") sells home electronics and household appliances in Denmark and Sweden
  • Elkjøp – ("Electrical Buy") sells home electronics and household appliances in Norway
  • Gigantti – ("Giant") sells home electronics and household appliances in Finland
  • Elko – franchise that uses the same brand markers, selling home electronics and household appliances in Iceland[19]
  • Elding Elrisin – Elgiganten franchise stores in the Faroe Islands[20]

South Eastern Europe

  • Kotsovolos – sells home electronics and household appliances in Greece and Cyprus

Former brands and operations

  • PC World – a retail chain of mass market computer megastores.
  • Dixons Travel - a retailer operating in the main airports in the United Kingdom, Dublin Airport in Ireland, Oslo Airport and on board P&O's cruise ship Ventura.
  • Carphone Warehouse – a mobile phone retailer that operated through standalone stores, inside of Currys PC World stores and online. The standalone stores closed in March 2020[21] and the stores inside of Currys PC World being rebranded to Currys Mobile in October 2021. However, the brand still operates online and the stores operationally remain the same despite no longer being branded as Carphone Warehouse.

Former operational brands

  • Team Knowhow (2017 - 2021) – The operational services brand for the Dixons Carphone, providing the same service as both the Knowhow and Geek Squad brands but under a different name.
  • Knowhow (2010 - 2017) - The operational brand for Currys PC World. It provided store stock fulfilment, customer deliveries, repairs and aftersales for the Currys PC World stores. The brand was created to provide services under a unified, recognisable name with instore counters operating alongside a website and call centre based in Sheffield with the aim of directly competing with the Geek Squad brand that was being rolled out across Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy UK stores at the time. It was also used in Elkjop stores for a short time before the service division was rebranded back to Elkjop services.
  • Geek Squad UK (2006 - 2017) - A provider of aftersales and insurance brand for Carphone Warehouse that was bought to the UK in 2009 following a partnership between Carphone Warehouse and the US electrical retailer Best Buy.
  • Tech Guys (2006 - 2010) - An operational brand providing deliveries, repairs and aftersales for the (at the time separate) Currys and PC World stores.

Leadership

The company's board is chaired by Ian Livingston. The non-executive directors are Andrea Gisle Joosen, Eileen Burbidge, Fiona McBain, Gerry Murphy and Tony DeNunzio.[22] The CEO of Currys plc is Alex Baldock, appointed in 2018.[22] The CFO of the business is Bruce Marsh, appointed in July 2021.[22]

Data security breaches

The group was fined £400,000 by the Information Commissioner in January 2018, as a result of unauthorised access to the personal data of over three million customers in 2015.[23] A further security breach, said to affect 1.2 million customers, was reported by the company in June 2018.[24] The number of customers affected was later increased to 10 million.[25]

References

  1. ^ a b "At a glance". Dixons Carphone. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
  2. ^ a b c "Annual Results 2020/21" (PDF). Dixons Carphone. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
  3. ^ Dixons Carphone, Company Information Service, retrieved 28 February 2021
  4. ^ "Dixons and Carphone warehouse merge to exploit internet of things". Marketing Week. 15 May 2014. Retrieved 1 September 2014.
  5. ^ "Dixons and Carphone Warehouse shares drop on merger". BBC News. 15 May 2014. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  6. ^ Ruddick, Graham (15 May 2014). "Carphone Warehouse and Dixons agree £3.8bn merger". Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 15 May 2014. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  7. ^ "Dixons Carphone unveils new stores". BBC News. 7 August 2014. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
  8. ^ "Dixons Carphone joins with energy supplier SSE for UK 'connected home' venture". Reuters. 14 December 2016. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
  9. ^ Slawson, Nicola (20 January 2018). "Dixons Carphone CEO will step down to run chemist chain Boots". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
  10. ^ Boland, Hannah (19 January 2018). "Dixons Carphone hires Shop Direct's Baldock to top role after chief executive quits for Boots". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
  11. ^ Jahshan, Elias (13 March 2019). "Dixons Carphone slugged with £29m fine for mis-selling mobile insurance". Retail Gazette. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
  12. ^ "Geek Squad fine over insurance mis-selling". 13 March 2019. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
  13. ^ Chapman, Ben (13 March 2019). "Dixons Carphone fined £29m for pushing phone insurance customers didn't need". The Independent. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
  14. ^ Kollewe, Julia (20 June 2019). "Dixons Carphone reveals big losses at mobile phone shops". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 4 December 2019.
  15. ^ Provan, Sarah; Eley, Jonathan (17 March 2020). "Dixons Carphone Warehouse closes 530 UK stores with loss of 3,000 jobs". Financial Times. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  16. ^ Eley, Jonathan (4 August 2020). "Dixons Carphone to axe 800 jobs in revamp of operations". Financial Times. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  17. ^ Onita, Laura (13 May 2021). "Dixons, PC World and Carphone Warehouse to disappear in Currys rebrand". The Telegraph. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
  18. ^ "Brands". Dixons Carphone. Retrieved 18 March 2017.
  19. ^ "Um ELKO". ELKO (in Icelandic). Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  20. ^ "Um". elding.fo. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  21. ^ "Carphone Warehouse to close all standalone stores at cost of 2,900 jobs". BBC News. 17 March 2020. Retrieved 15 December 2022.
  22. ^ a b c "Board of Directors". www.currysplc.com. Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  23. ^ "Carphone Warehouse fined £400,000 after serious failures placed customer and employee data at risk". ICO. Information Commissioner's Office. 10 January 2018. Retrieved 13 June 2018.
  24. ^ "Investigation Into Unauthorised Data Access". Investis. RNS London Stock Exchange. 13 June 2018. Retrieved 13 June 2018.
  25. ^ "Nine million more hit by Dixons data breach". BBC News: Business. 31 July 2018. Retrieved 1 August 2018.


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