Dixon’s Carphone is winding up its telecoms operator, iD Mobile, after the business failed to attract enough customers to be viable.

The Carphone Warehouse owner established ID in 2015 to facilitate competition in the wake of Three's take over of rival O2.

Dixon’s said on Tuesday that iD was unable to grow its business sufficiently against the established operators and its losses became unsustainable.

The group confirmed it had applied to the High Court for the appointment of a provisional liquidator, whom it will provide with the cash to maintain iD Mobile while its 40,000 customers move to new networks. The application was made by the company because the parent is no longer prepared to support the company and where its deficit, after some three years of trading in Ireland, had risen to €25.2 million, the High Court was told.

Dixon’s also pledged that iD’s suppliers would be paid for services provided during this time.

“Customers will be contacted by text, letter and email in the coming days and all existing iD Mobile customers will be offered full service on the iD Mobile network for the next 30 days,” a statement said.

Call credit

“Bill-pay customers will not receive any further bills for their iD Mobile service and pay-as-you-go customers will be able to use any remaining call credit over this period.”

Tom Murray of accountants Friel Stafford has been appointed liquidator to iD Mobile.

Dixon’s said that it invested substantially in iD and continued to support the business financially since 2015.

Dixons Carphone invested some €20 million in setting up iD Mobile which uses the 3 Ireland network. It targeted some 5-6 per cent of the market, or about 250,000 subscribers, but struggled to make that target.