Carphone Warehouse ‘aiming to sell 1m laptops’
Communications firm Carphone Warehouse has set an ambitious target of selling one million laptops a year as it battles the effects of the credit crunch.
The company is pumping £3 million into training staff to offload the computers and is even offering them to staff as prizes for passing sales courses.
Some analysts are predicting the firm’s high growth period is now behind it as the economy slows down.
But bosses have said the laptop initiative was a long-term plan rather than a knee-jerk reaction to tough times.
UK chief executive Andrew Harrison said: “We are about to go through same growth curve in laptops as we did in mobiles and if we are to enter this market we have to have knowledgeable, credible staff and that means a huge investment in our people and training so they can give customers advice about which product is best for their needs.”
Experts from GFK say the laptop market value will grow to £3.8 billion, with 7.6 million expected to be sold this year.
Carphone Warehouse’s scheme involves computers from Acer, Fujitsu, Siemens, Toshiba and EPC, priced from free to £249 with a broadband contract from Orange, T-mobile, 3 and own brands Talk Talk and AOL.
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