Swedish manufacturer increases its presence across 135 Carphone stores
Doro has set its sights on being the biggest feature phone manufacturer worldwide by 2018 following its largest-ever retail push in the UK.
It has increased its presence across 135 Carphone Warehouse stores. Display gondolas have been installed in 21 branches, including Nottingham, Leeds, Louth and Telford. They will enable visitors to test live versions of the 8030 4G smartphone, alongside 6520 and 5516 3G feature phones. Smaller plinths displaying various products will also be added to 114 locations.
Hot on heels
Doro UK and Ireland managing director Chris Millington declined to reveal market share figures, but claimed it was currently third in the feature phone market and hot on the heels of Alcatel and Nokia.
“This is the biggest retail project we’ve done in terms of brand presence. We’re launching so many devices and it gives us a chance to talk to more customers about them.”
“We’re the third largest feature phone maker in the world and we’re so close to second. It’s frustrating. It’s pushes like these which will help us become number two next year and number one the year after.
“It will happen quite quickly. We’re much more than a niche brand now and people think of us in a more credible way. We dominate so much of the UK now. There are very few direct competitors.”
Carphone is one of 12 major retail agreements signed by Doro over the last five years. Others include O2, EE, Vodafone, Tesco Mobile, John Lewis, Argos, Anywhere SIM, Sainsbury’s and Asda.
Retail footprint
Millington claimed the company’s retail footprint is in the thousands, with a presence in more than 400 Tesco and O2 stores, alongside 500 Vodafone branches.
“Having a live device in front of our customers will help us drive our goals. It will encourage others to understand the value of our products. Dummies don’t work and there are hundreds of phones out there. Having these new displays means our message is no longer as limited.”
Staff appointments
Doro has appointed former Vodafone and Carphone Warehouse employees Alan Roberts and James Kerr as new sales executives.
The newly-created roles will see both lead Doro’s retail push across 135 Carphone stores.Each will be responsible for educating and training staff at the branches on the latest Doro products. The appointments bring Doro’s total UK staff numbers to 12.
Roberts had been Vodafone retail senior sales advisor from August 2014. Kerr was a customer consultant at Carphone for over 18 months.
Millington said: “We are constantly evolving our propositions and there are real step changes planned in Q4 and 2017 that will require us to work harder to ensure this message is delivered.”
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