Carphone Warehouse has closed in Ireland with more than 400 job losses. The company says it is due to a change in consumer habits.
Around 80 Carphone Warehouse stores have closed immediately, while some staff will be kept on by the company over the next couple of days for operational reasons.
The business say it expected a change in consumer habits with people buying phones less frequently – however it expected it to occur over a long period of time with the change attributed to the pandemic.
The firm’s parent company says they’ll also continue selling phones and accessories through Currys PC World. Carphone Warehouse had closed its stores in the UK last year.
Tanaiste Leo Varadkar says the news is a major blow to employees and their families after what has been a really difficult year. He says the government will make all necessary assistance available such as income support, job search advice and education opportunities.
The Tanaiste says many high street retailers have been under pressure for some time now with the pandemic and move to online.
”As part of Dixons Carphone’s broader transformation, of one joined up and profitable business, it has made the difficult but necessary decision to close Carphone Warehouse in Ireland, in line with its decision to close all standalone Carphone Warehouse stores in the UK in 2020.
Customers are changing the way they buy mobile devices and connectivity, replacing their handsets less often and buying them separately or as part of more flexible bundles. Although these changes in behaviour were anticipated, they were expected to occur over a longer period of time. However, the change in shopping behaviours has been accelerated by the pandemic.
We’ll continue to offer our Irish customers a market leading range of top branded mobile handsets and accessories through our Currys PC World stores and on Currys.ie.
Footfall in our Carphone Warehouse stores is down significantly, and we don’t expect many customers to sign new contracts with us during this time; our stores will therefore close immediately. We’ll continue to help our customers via our central customer support team and will also ask some colleagues to provide operational support over the coming days.”
https://twitter.com/CarphoneIE/status/1384832575672397827
