X

Dixons and Carphone Warehouse set for £3.7bn merger

Currys, PC World and Carphone Warehouse could be united in a £3.7 billion merger this month.

Richard Trenholm Former Movie and TV Senior Editor
Richard Trenholm was CNET's film and TV editor, covering the big screen, small screen and streaming. A member of the Film Critic's Circle, he's covered technology and culture from London's tech scene to Europe's refugee camps to the Sundance film festival.
Expertise Films, TV, Movies, Television, Technology
Richard Trenholm

done-deal.jpg
Dixons and Carphone Warehouse are set to merge Shutterstock

Carphone Warehouse and Dixons Retail could be about to merge into one enormous high street technology giant.

Sky News reports that the two companies will be equal partners in the £3.7 billion merger, which will go before the Takeover Panel before 19 May.

The new unified company could be called Dixons Carphone Group plc, although the final name hasn't been agreed yet. This would seem like the perfect opportunity for Carphone Warehouse to ditch the outdated "Carphone" bit of its name, but then "Dixons Warehouse" isn't especially inviting either.

The Dixons group includes Currys and PC World, which apart from smaller technology shops like Maplin already has the high streets and retail parks largely to itself, especially since the failure of rival gadget chain Comet. Meanwhile there are over 800 Carphone Warhouse stores in the UK, making the new company a formidable presence in the market for gadgets.

It's not yet clear how the proposed merger would affect current employees, with reports referring only to job cuts at head office. Because the two companies sell different types of products, it's perhaps less likely that shops will be merged and staff cut, as happened when Orange and T-Mobile merged to form EE.

A spokesperson for Carphone Warehouse declined to comment on the reports.