The Carphone Warehouse looks set to expand its range of
broadband offers for
laptop PCs following its purchase of the UK assets of Italian
internet service provider Tiscali for £236m. The Carphone Warehouse currently offers broadband products under its
TalkTalk brand, whilst it also owns AOL UK. The brands will eventually be merged into a single brand, whilst the company has already separated its
mobile phone business from its TalkTalk fixed line and broadband operations.
The completion of the deal will give TalkTalk more than 25 per cent of the
home broadband market, whilst Carphone Warehouse predict its earnings will increase by 10 per cent in the next year as a result of the deal. Chief Executive of Tiscali, Mario Rosso, said, ‘The transaction should be considered in light of the strong consolidating trend in the highly competitive UK market, evaluating Tiscali UK activities as a whole, thus preserving the value of its industrial assets and know-how within the Carphone Warehouse Group.’
There has been a proliferation in the number of
mobile phone operators and vendors offering
broadband deals of late. Indeed, all the major mobile phone operators are offering
laptop broadband bundles, whereby customers who sign up for an 18 month or 24 month broadband contract receive a ‘free’
notebook computer .