Currys

Currys

Industry	Retail
Founded	1884
Headquarters	Acton, London, England, UK
Key people	Joel Stevenson (Group Retail Director) James Hales Colin Orr
Products	White goods, Telecommunications, Information technology
Number of employees	10,762 (2008)
Parent	Dixons Carphone
Website	www.currys.co.uk

Currys is a British electrical retailer operating in the UK and Ireland, owned by Dixons Carphone. It specialises in selling home electronics and household appliances, with 295 superstores and 73 high street stores. Smaller stores also trade under the Currys Digital brand in the UK, which was introduced to rebrand all former Dixons stores in 2006. Dixons stores in Ireland followed in August 2008, without the Digital suffix.

Most stores in the UK have now been dual branded with the PC World name.

Currys was founded in 1884 by Henry Curry (born in Leicester in 1850), when he started to build bicycles full-time at 421 Jump Street, Leicester, England. He opened his first shop in 1888 at 271 Belgrave Gate, Leicester. In 1890 he moved to larger premises at 296 Belgrave Gate, then in 1900 to 285-287 Belgrave Gate. The company was put on a proper financial footing in 1897 when Curry formed a partnership with his sons, calling the company C. Curry & Sons. The business continued to click and floated on the stock exchange in 1927. By this time the shops sold a wide variety of goods including bicycles, toys, radios and gramophones. Currys pulled out of cycle manufacturing in 1932 when they closed their Leicester factory but continued to retail bikes (badged as Currys) until the 1960s.

Currys was taken over by Dixons (now Dixons Carphone, owners of the Dixons electrical products retail chain) in 1984 but maintained its separate brand identity. In April 2006, DSG announced that its Dixons stores (except in Ireland and in duty-free areas in airports) would be rebranded as Currys.digital, making a total of 550 Currys stores in all. However, in August 2008, the Dixons stores in Ireland were rebranded as Currys, similar to the UK move, but without the ".digital" suffix and with a new Currys logo.

Before the Dixons rebranding, the chain contained only a few small town centre stores compared with its much greater number of large out-of-town superstores. These stores are generally split into four main departments - Computing, Home Entertainment, Major Domestic Appliances and Small Domestic Appliances. The stores are a mix of display products and self-service sections.

On 17 January 2007, Group Chief Executive John Clare announced that when the leases on the remaining 'Currys High Street' stores (not the rebranded Currys.digital stores) expired, it would be unlikely that they would be renewed: thus the stores will be closed at the earliest opportunity.