It's about time they had some competition - reckon CPW/BB might try and get in on their market?

Do TalkTalk fall under "Airtime Reselling"?

If so then it seems we have a new player in the Phorm game and people need to start writing letters to the Best Buy board expressing their concerns about Phorm.

I wonder if Chris Williams can possibly manage to get a comment out of the Best Buy executives re: Phorm?

The Retail market in the UK has one way to go -- and will go quickly especially in light of hour poor the CW customer service is. DSG was first to feel the pinch, and CW is going to follow soon.

You give customers bad cusomter service, you lose sales- it doesn't matter how good and how much marketing you throw at people, eventually given the choice, people go elsewhere. DSG profit warning was just the beginning, If DSG and CW had customer service to a degree that john lewis, or even apple store have, i highly doubt it would have been as high a profit warning.

The demise of the high street has nothign to do with the internet, the high street was self harming a long time ago. The owners of CW must be laughing their way to the bank.

Another crap retailer. Just what we need.. Although if it starts a price war, my crap may become cheaper.

For any Americans out there, crap means shit. (And fanny means, oh never mind.)

Just to point out that the Carphone Warehouse is not just a UK operation. Its retail business would give Best Buy a huge foothold in most of the EU.

Carphone Warehouse operates as the Carphone Warehouse in the UK and Republic of Ireland and as "Phone House" in many other EU countries.

as they get a nice injection of cash to pay down the debt mountain. But for us consumers, well I'll be the first to say that I have never been to a Best Buy so I have no experience of how good they are or aren't .

However if half the stories on the net are to be believed they will be bringing a similar experience to that of Currys, Comet and PC World.

And I will be avoiding BB just as I avoid the other well known aforementioned chains. I just can't be dealing with poor customer service, rude ignorant and/or patronising staff and high prices. We've all been there haven't we - you need something in a hurry and so you venture into one of their barns and then they make you regret ever going near the place . They don't sell anything I can't get cheaper online or at the supermarkets or with superior customer service at John Lewis.

Paris - cos she appreciates good "service"

BestBuy is the states is a pretty amazing retail experience in comparison to anything in the UK. PC World still has a 'more expensive than the net' feel, sometimes stupidly so on their accessories & cables, probably from the DSG parents who think £19.99 is fine for a £1.99 SCART cable....

Bare in mind CPW-BestBuy isn't going to be another PC World. Its more like wireless gadgets/products for the home. A market we don't really have stores for yet at a sensible consumer level.

And to Alexander who brought up TalkTalk.

You do realise that's now a separate company to Carphone Retail?

Plus - yes, when it started Free Broadband it was a total farce - who'd a thought loads of people want broadband for free - but now its actually a pretty reliable service. Check uSwitch.com if you don't believe me...

I look forward to some massive stores with hopefully keen-US-style pricing.

It doesn't take a math genius to figure this one. BestBuy force their suppliers to sell them stock at the same price they get it in the US - then they pass on the typical US prices to the UK buying public - Oh no, don't be silly....

They buy at the same prices as they do in the US, then make a much bigger profit selling the items here than they could ever do in the States. Maybe just a little bit less than Dixons / PC World / Comet etc. (maybe at typical online retailer prices), and still make far bigger profit than Stateside.

Smiling all the way to the bank!

The deal is only for 50% of the newly-separated R&D business, which doesn't include any Telco or broadband activity.

You can look forward to Best Buy stores (of a similar scale to US stores - think 'Ikea' size, not PC World) opening starting 2009, in the UK at first and then across the EU.

FWIW, Best Buy are actually pretty good at customer service and see themselves as much more of a "demo and educate" store than a "pile 'em high and price 'em cheap" big box retailer. The cultural fit of Best Buy and CPW is fairly close (insert snark here) in that they are genuinely interested in the customer experience.

CPW has 8% of the laptop market only 9 weeks after starting to supply them - I wonder what the mood's like at DSG in Hemel right now...

Tux because Best Buy sell PCs without the Windows Tax

A 50% stake Carphone Warehouse 2.400 retail store it's whats been sold

TalkTalk & AOL Broadband (and with them all ongoing revenues) has NOT been sold,

What a lot of people don't realise is Carphone already has an 8% market share of the UK laptop market and they've only been giving them away for a couple of months

Imagine what Carphone could do with the backing of the worlds largest Electronics retailer and it's deep pockets

On the other side of the coin, Best Buy stores will be coming to the UK and Europe, this is a venture which Carphone have a 50% stake in

Customers, will get increased competition

So Carphone (already Europe's largest phone retailer) get the backing of one of the worlds largest retailer in return for giving up a 50% stake in the stores AND over a billion pounds AND get to keep TalkTalk & AOL

Carphone win

Best Buy get instant access to 2,400 stores throughout Europe

Best Buy win

Customers get increased competition

Customers win

DSG group may lose

So everybody wins!!!

"Bare in mind CPW-BestBuy isn't going to be another PC World. Its more like wireless gadgets/products for the home. A market we don't really have stores for yet at a sensible consumer level."

Wot, like Tandy used to be?

"Tux because Best Buy sell PCs without the Windows Tax"

Really? Or is that only without the Windows Tax but including the OS-X tax instead? I've certainly not seen OS-less computers at BestBuy in Canada. Searching BestBuy's websites in Canada and the US for "linux" doesn't bring up anything except one game that lists Linux as a supported operating system and two music CD's by some artist called "DJ Linux". That's on the US version. On the Canadian site searching for "linux" brings up nada.

"Wot, like Tandy used to be?"

Which Carphone brought years ago

My mistake - I appear to have been misunderinformed.

Re: Tandy - Carphone got a load of decent retail premises and a fancy logistics centre in the West Midlands, and some talent - but not an electronics business.