Carphone Warehouse has said that like-for-like revenues rose in the first quarter against strong comparatives. The group, which is currently in merger talks with Dixons Retail, said that revenue growth was 2.3% in the fourth quarter, maintaining the strong momentum seen during the Christmas quarter. However, no mention was made of the Dixons deal, which has a deadline of May 19th for the firms to confirm whether they intend to press ahead with the merger. Carphone added that it was focused on “replicating the UK's operational excellence across other markets and increasing our relevance and scale through partnerships”.

Andrew Harrison, CEO said: "We continued to show good momentum, with further growth in like-for-like revenues, against strong comparatives. The mobile market continues to see a fall in prepay connections; but this has been compensated by an increase in 4G penetration, with higher levels of data take-up at a pricing premium, and consequential growth in customer ARPU. Our executional focus remains strong, with our tablet-based sales tool, 'Pin Point', continuing to drive customer satisfaction and conversion, to the benefit of customers, network operators and ourselves. We are also making good progress in our partnership and Connected World Services strategy and have now opened 31 Samsung stores in seven countries, with approximately 30 more stores to be opened in the first phase."