Dixons Carphone will close its 531 standalone Carphone Warehouse stores in the UK and focus on selling mobile devices and connectivity through its shop-in-shops in 305 big Currys PCWorld stores and online.

The small standalone stores, representing 8% of Dixons Carphone’s total UK selling space, will close on 3 April 2020. The business expects almost 40% (1,800) of affected workers to take new roles internally, but expects 2,900 redundancies as the businesses are brought together.

The company said it would go well beyond legal obligations in financial and other support for all affected employees.

The electronics retailer blamed changes in the mobile-phone market, with consumers upgrading handsets less often. The closures are unrelated to the coronavirus pandemic, it said.

The company was created through a merger in 2014 of electronics retailer Dixons and the Carphone Warehouse mobile chain.