FTSE 250-mobile phone giant Carphone Warehouse unveiled a robust set of full-year figures, upped its dividend payment by 20% and gave a positive outlook a day after its merger with Dixons received EU approval.

Statutory pre-tax profit rose to £67m for the year ended March 29th from just £3m the year earlier. Like-for-like (LFL) revenue grew 5.3%.

Chief Executive Officer Andrew Harrison said: "Carphone Warehouse has had a strong year. Strategically and operationally, we have moved our business forward significantly, showing further progress on 4G, developing our award-winning tablet-based assisted sales tool, Pin Point, growing our Connected World Services business, and taking steps to realise value through the proposed sale of Virgin Mobile France.

"Looking ahead, the shifts we see in the marketplace offer considerable opportunities to create value for our employees, our customers, our suppliers, our partners and our shareholders. From a position of strength, we are planning to take greater advantage of these developments through our proposed merger with Dixons Retail."

On Wednesday it was confirmed that Carphone Warehouse and Dixons have received EC approval for their merger, creating 'Dixons Carphone'.

Carphone has recommended final dividend of 4p per share, bringing full year dividend to 6.00p per share, 20% more than the prior year.



FTSE 250 consumer goods packaging firm DS Smith said full-year profit more than doubled despite challenging economic conditions across Europe as the current year starts well and in line with expectations.

Pre-tax profit surged to £167m in the 12 months to April 30th from £82m a year earlier as revenue increased 10% to £4.03m. Earnings per share climbed 25% to 21.4p.

Organic corrugated packaging volumes grew 2.2%, ahead of the corrugated packaging market. It said volume growth has been particularly strong in its Central Europe and Italy region after new customer wins and expanding services to existing customers.

Chief Executive Miles Roberts: "This is a strong set of results achieved despite economic conditions across Europe remaining challenging. We have achieved our synergy targets for the year and delivered good growth in profits, returns and dividends.

"Our strengthened customer proposition and an ability to deliver across the whole customer supply cycle has led to increased market share across our regions. The current year has started well and is in line with our expectations."

DS Smith said while it expects the difficult consumer economic environment to remain, it believes the sustainability of its business model will create further growth opportunities.

The group has recommended an increased dividend payment of 10p compared to the previous payment of 8p.

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