Carphone Warehouse is set to close all its stores in the UK, with around 60 percent of staff set to lose their jobs. 

The move is slightly more complex than that though since Carphone is part of the same company that owns Currys PC World and so you'll still be able to buy phones through the 305 Carphone Warehouse shops within those stores.

Dixons says it is committed to its larger store footprint, saying it's "why we’re investing tens of millions of pounds in them and in the thousands of expert colleagues who work in them. But it’s also why sadly we have to close the small stores."

While the company says it hasn't yet seen an effect due to the coronavirus outbreak, the reduced footfall on the UK high street must have factored into the timing of the decision, even if we've heard that the move has been on the cards for some time. 

The group formally known as Dixons Stores Group (DSG) and now known as Dixons Carphone says the closures represent around 8 percent of its current selling area. 

The company says it is "an essential next step towards making Mobile a sustainable and profitable category and staying on track with our longer-term transformation of the group".

 

Interestingly Dixons Carphone says that the effect on products from the coronavirus outrbreak have been fairly minimal, stating that "supply constraints have been limited to a few products and we have been, and continue to be, able to work closely with suppliers to secure stock or source product from unaffected areas."

Electrical sales "have been resilient" with the exception of Dixons Travel stores which have been affected by the collapse of air passenger numbers. 

"Clearly, with unsustainable losses of £90m expected this year, Mobile is currently holding back the whole business," said Alex Baldock, Group Chief Executive of Dixons Carphone. "There’s never an easy time for an announcement like this, but the turbulent times ahead only underline the importance of acting now."

"Customers are increasingly heading, not just to our large and growing online business, but into our big stores, where they can find all the experts and tech they need.

"But they can’t find all this in the small mobile-only stores that are one twentieth of the size; they’re visiting these less and these stores are losing more money as a result."