Giant US retailer Best Buy, which signed a joint venture last year with UK-based Carphone Warehouse, has slipped the date of its first UK mega-store--with handsets being a key product--by 12 months. Without explaining this delay, Best Buy said it not only expected to gain a significant share of the UK mobile market with the launch of its new stores, but would also help to expand the total size of the market.
However, the company admitted the delay would allow it to take advantage of the property slump to find retail store sites at good prices, and confirmed Best Buy and Carphone Warehouse still planned about 100 stores in the UK, to be opened between 2010 and 2015, mainly in out-of-town locations, and another 100 to be opened in mainland Europe by 2013.
Speaking at a retail conference in London, Best Buy CEO, Brad Anderson, said the company expected to successfully coexist with other retailers in the UK, but would come to market with a more complex set of offerings. "We will provide a fundamentally different value proposition to the UK's biggest retailer Tesco."
For more on this story:
ReThink Wireless and Dow Jones
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