New line for Carphone Warehouse

Carphone Warehouse will launch its first fixed-line telephone service for consumers on Monday, and hopes to sign up more than 200,000 customers over the next 12 months.

The service, called Talktalk, which uses the tagline “landline calls for less”, will run over the Opal Telecom network, acquired by Carphone Warehouse last November (MW November 14, 2002).

Talktalk will be marketed mainly through in-store literature and a non-transactional website, which will be launched next week. A transactional website will follow in six to eight weeks time.

Managing director Paul Halliwell was appointed head of the fixed-line consumer business last May. Neil Welsh, former area manager for central London, has been appointed as the division’s sales and marketing manager and will work alongside Carphone Warehouse’s UK sales and marketing director, Jonathan Hook.

Opal was previously a wholly business-to-business operation and it will continue to operate under the same name. It is run by managing director David Goldie.

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Carphone Warehouse has appointed Gordon Nardini as head of retail marketing, to work with head of marketing Trista Clarke.