Carphone Warehouse has published an interim management statement for the latest financial quarter, which ended on 30th June 2012. It says sales in its European business, although up 5.7% year-on-year to £776 million, were actually down 2% on a like-for-like basis.

Total connections in Europe were down 17.8% to just under 2 million.

Mark Bridge writes:

Is there any product that offers as much potential for additional sales as the mobile phone?

When I visit a coffee shop to buy a coffee, I’m often asked “would you like any pastries or muffins with that?”

On the one occasion that I bought a new car, I was offered the option of paying extra for different colours, for floor mats and for a fancy stereo. When you buy a DVD player or a games console, it’s pretty obvious you’ll be paying extra for entertainment.

Yet, when you consider the variety of add-ons available in the mobile industry, I’d say smartphones were in a league of their own.

Mark Bridge writes:

Oh, how cheerful we were last Monday. Apple previewed iOS6, which will bring mobile tickets (and 200 other new features) to the iPhone and iPad this autumn. Vodafone cut the cost of using your phone in Europe with its flat-rate £3-per-day EuroTraveller deal and a few days later Three came up with its own ‘unlimited’ European data roaming.

Yet by the end of the week there were fewer smiles in the mobile industry.

Charles Dunstone, chairman and co-founder of Carphone Warehouse, has been awarded a knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List “for services to the Mobile Communications Industry and to charity”.

Dr Michael Short, president of the Institution of Engineering & Technology and vice president at Telefónica Europe, is to receive a CBE.

Carphone Warehouse Group plc has published its preliminary results for the year ended 31st March 2012.

Net profit was £57.7 million, up from last year, although revenues from its European retail business were down 5.5% year-on-year to £3,313.1 million.