THE price of mobile phone handsets will drop by an average of £40 today as Phones4U, the retail group owned by John Caudwell, launches a £20 million high street price war aimed at its larger rivals Carphone Warehouse and The Link.
The group said yesterday that it would cut the price of handsets in an attempt to seize a bigger slice of the highly competitive market.
The cuts will be backed by a £15 million national advertising campaign using the brand Phones 4 Less and a promise to match the price at any other handset retailer or pay the difference plus 20 per cent.
Anthony Catterson, managing director of Phones4U, said: “We will undercut everybody in terms of price. Our goal is to be the market leader in the fastest time possible, which means driving bigger market share and bigger volume in the short term.”
He added: “We don’t believe that the market is big enough for three major players.”
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As part of the scheme, Phones4U would drop the prices of handsets by an average of £40. Mr Catterson said that the cuts “will save our customers £20 million between now and the end of the year”.
The Nokia 6100, the best-selling handset, which in June cost £100 in a basic contract with any service provider, would drop to nil. The cost of the second most popular, the Sony Ericsson T610, would fall from £50 to £25.
A spokeswoman for Carphone Warehouse, the largest mobile handset retailer, said: “We’re not concerned by what they are up to. We already have a promise to match the lowest prices in the market.”