LONDON-Best Buy International will team with U.K. wireless retail giant Carphone Warehouse Group to open stand-alone cell phone stores in the United States.
In a prepared statement, the firms said a trial of Best Buy Mobile stores in New York “is about to commence;” the companies declined to discuss how many stores are planned. The companies also announced plans to launch a home-computing service in the United Kingdom under Best Buy’s Geek Squad brand.
Carphone Warehouse dominates the wireless retail space in Europe by offering a leisurely, interactive sales experience. The company is looking to gain traction on a mobile retail playing field in the United States that is getting increasingly heated: carriers have stepped up their brick-and-mortar sales efforts and a handful of independent chains have opened stores offering handsets and services from a variety of wireless companies. Further, some handset makers like Nokia Corp. and Motorola Inc. are getting into the action with their own retail efforts.
“The U.S. market is very large but has little retail distribution on the Carphone Warehouse model,” said Carphone Chief Executive Officer Charles Dunstone. “Together, the complementary skills of Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy mean we can jointly test out both of these exciting opportunities at low cost, with low risk and little diversion of management time.”
