European activity continued in April when the Group acquired a 15% stake in leading Greek electrical retailer, P.Kotsovolos, with stores in Greece and the Czech Republic.

The Group was named as the Company of the Year in the Sunday Times/Natwest Business Enterprise awards in June.

In July, the Group showed underlying profit before tax increasing by 11% to £263.7 million.

A strategic partnership was formed with eMachines, a leading supplier of PCs to the US market in August, making the Group the exclusive supplier of eMachine PCs to third party retailers in a number of European countries.

Omni Source, a new Group company was created to focus on the sourcing of own brand and directly sourced products for the Group's European retail market.

The Group continued to bring the latest technology to UK customers with the launch of digital radio (the Psion WaveFinder) and TiVo, the intelligent personal video recorder in October.

E-commerce development resulted in new websites for Currys and The Link and improved functionality on the PC World and Dixons Online sites in December.

In March PC World Business opened new headquarters in Bury, Lancashire to meet the growth in business demand for new technology.

In April the Group announced its sponsorship of the UK's first chair in entrepreneurship and innovation at Edinburgh University.

PC World launched the first ever 1GHz laptop by own brand Advent as well as the UK's first PC with a recordable DVD. In the same month Dixons reported that sales of digital cameras had outstripped traditional 35mm cameras for the first time.

Elkjøp acquired SuperRadio, creating Denmark's leading out of town electrical retailer.

The full year results in July showed underlying profit before tax increasing by 5% to £277.8 million. The Group announced its intention to create 1,300 new jobs over the 2001/02 financial year.

In July Sir John Collins was appointed a deputy chairman of the Group. The Board announced its intention that Sir John would succeed Sir Stanley Kalms as Group Chairman in September 2002.

In August Currys unveiled its new branding initiative, the "Currys - no worries" theme to coincide with a major TV advertising campaign focusing around "the Currys family".

In September the Group launched a new charitable campaign - "Health Matters" - to support a consortium of four health charities: Breast Cancer Campaign, The Stroke Association, The Prostate Cancer Charity and the MS Society.

In November, PC City in France boosted its online presence with the opening of two new superstores in Villebon and Plaisir, close to Paris.

In the same month, readers of the Sunday Telegraph judged Sir Stanley Kalms to be the Sunday Telegraph Chairman of the Year for his outstanding business career and his contribution to British retailing.

At the end of November, the Group acquired a 24% stake in Unieuro, a leading independent retailer of consumer electronics and domestic appliances in Italy.

Back in the UK, Dixons xL, the largest store in the chain, was opened in Cardiff City Centre. The 26,000 sq ft store, arranged over two floors, is ten times bigger than the average Dixons store.

At The Link, Newry, Ashling Kearney celebrated winning the best small store manager of the year award in the 2002 Retail Week honours in March.

Currys kicked off a major household safety drive in April. The Switched on to Safety campaign was designed to help cut the number of accidents involving electrical products.

The Group purchased mobile phone service provider Genesis Communications to develop its position in the business to business mobile communications market.

In June, the Group announced full year results showing underlying profit before tax up 7% at £297.2 million.

Chairman Sir Stanley Kalms was awarded two honorary degrees from Buckingham and Sheffield Universities. At the Group's AGM in September, Sir Stanley stepped down from the Board to become President. Sir John Collins succeeded him as Chairman.

Currys launched the Fridgesavers scheme in partnership with Powergen. Under this scheme householders claiming benefit were offered a brand new energy-efficient fridge or fridge-freezer at very low cost.

PC Servicecall, the Group's Nottingham-based call centre employed a group of Nordic nationals to provide dedicated technical support to home PC owners in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The team includes native speakers from Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland.

In June the Group announced full year results showing underlying profit before tax up 1% to £301.3 million.

PC City opened its thirteenth Spanish store in Catalonia, north-west Spain. Sweden's first ever PC City store was opened in Sickla, Stockholm.

Back in the UK two Dixons xL stores were opened in Swansea and Birmingham to queues of 4,000 people each.

Sir Stanley Kalms, who became President of the Group last September, won the first ever lifetime achievement award at the 2003 Retail Week Awards. He was praised by judges for creating a culture of change, innovation and professionalism.

The Group announced a promotional partnership with AOL, the UK's leading online interactive services provider, where AOL dial-up software would be sold in PC World, Currys and Dixons and installed on all PCs sold through the stores.

A partnership with Napster was announced in May, with Napster 2.0 software installed on all own-brand PCs, and Napster music software and branded products stocked in all UK stores - the first ever partnership between an online music provider and high street electronics retailer.

The Mastercare IT Support Centre, which provides IT support for 4,000 aftersales service employees, was named 'Best Place to Work' for IT software, hardware and services by Computer Weekly Magazine.

The Group acquired Micro Warehouse, one of the UK's largest and longest established direct resellers of branded IT products and services to business.

The Group's new 100% recycled carrier bag won Best Environmental Initiative at the Plastics Industry Awards. By using recycled waste plastic, 1.8 tonnes of oil is saved for every tonne of bags produced.

In June the Group announced full year results showing underlying profit before tax up 11% to £331.6 million.

Strong results were received in a mystery shopping exercise to measure the success of the Group's in-store disability awareness training and access provision in advance of the introduction of Part III of the Disability Discrimination Act.

The Group acquired a controlling stake of the issued share capital of Kotsovolos, the leading electrical retailer in Greece.

Group Chairman Sir John Collins was awarded with an honorary doctorate in Science from Reading University.

Currys reported positive feedback one year on from the launch of its television campaign "always cutting prices" featuring designer Linda Barker. Research showed 67% of consumers associated Currys with low prices, and 12% more shoppers visited stores.

Dixons returned to Britain's television screens for the first time in three years with a new campaign "the future for less", underpinning its position as the destination store for stylish, affordable new technology.

Group founder and President Sir Stanley Kalms was elevated to the House of Lords, becoming Lord Kalms.

More than £450,000 was raised for the 2004 Group Charity of the Year consortium Action4Disability, supporting the Down's Syndrome Association, Parkinson's Disease Society, Action for Blind People, and Headway - the brain injury association. The money was raised by a combination of business-based initiatives and employee activities.

In April the Group signed a long-term co-operation agreement with Eldorado Group, the leading specialist retailer of consumer electronics and domestic appliances in Russia and Ukraine. Under the agreement the Group has the exclusive right - but not the obligation - to take control of Eldorado Group before 2011.

Dixons Group plc changed its name to DSG international plc in September to better reflect its growing international status. At the time one third of sales were from international businesses.

freetalk - a telephone service enabling customers to make free calls via the Internet - was launched by the Group in its UK chains in September.

PC World began publishing its own in-store technology magazine for customers, giving practical information about how to get the most from digital devices.

In October DSG international opened its first store in Poland under the Electro World brand.

The Group published its first corporate responsibility indicators, covering performance in the fields of employment, community relations, health and safety, environment and ethical standards. Shortly after, DSG international was chosen as the Dacorum Community Business of the Year.

Elkjøp was named Internet Trader of the Year in an influential Norwegian industry awards programme.

The Dixons brand was re-launched as a pure-play online retailer. Its high street stores were converted to the Currys brand, creating a 550-strong chain.

The acquisition of a majority stake in leading pan-European e-tailer Fotovista extended the Group's e-commerce operations into 26 countries with the Pixmania brand. During the 2006/07 peak season, e-commerce sales accounted for 10 per cent of total Group sales (up from 3 per cent the previous year.)

In September, the Group launched a new national customer support service, "The TechGuys", to provide expert, fast-track support for increasingly technology-dependent UK homes.

The Link was sold to O2 (UK) Limited, who had previously owned a 40 per cent stake in the chain.

PC World introduced a team bonus to reward customer service and team performance, replacing the historic personal sales commission scheme.

Currys launched a Reserve & Collect service allowing customers to select a product online and reserve it for collection from their local store.

The Group received a Maylands Recovery Award for its best practice communications and business performance following the Buncefield explosion in Hemel Hempstead, adjacent to the Group's Retail Support Centre headquarters.

Currys was awarded 'Energy Saving Recommended' status for two own brand set top boxes, an industry first in the UK.

PC World received a Retail Week Awards Product Innovation of the Year award for its Data Recovery service.  PC World was also named Highly Commended runner up in the Speciality Retailer of the Year category.

In May, DSGi opened Europe's largest electrical distribution centre in Newark, Nottinghamshire.  The centre sits in a 100 acre campus and has the potential to process 25,000 32" flat-screen TVs in a day.  It was followed by the opening of a new central distribution warehouse at Piacenza, Italy with over 50,000 square metres of storage space.

In October, Dixons.co.uk launched an online Greenshop, the biggest one-stop-shop of 'green' products available from any electrical retailer in the UK.

PC World introduced a fleet of space age distribution lorries in December.  The lorry is called the "RoadMouse", because it is shaped like enormous computer mouse. Thanks to the lorry's tall yet aerodynamic shape, each equivalent journey can be carried out using by 10 percent less fuel and with 10 percent more storage capacity.

1. Focus on the customer through delivering an unbeatable combination of VALUE, CHOICE and SERVICE.
2. Focus the portfolio on winning positions
3. Transform the business to broaden the choices for our customers and improve the in- store buying experience.
4. Win in the internet market by growing our pure play business and become the masters of multi-channel retailing.
5. Reduce our cost base by simplifying processes.

We entered into our second year of our charity partnerships with The Foyer Federation, Eco-Schools, e-Learning Foundation and AbilityNet who are supporting our  Switched on Communities campaign to deliver on-the-ground technology and training initiatives. 

In October, Liverpool residents were among the first in the UK to experience the new store formats offering from PC World which opened in Aintree. Also this month, a brand new format Currys Megastore was opened at Junction 9 of the M6 near Birmingham.  Some £2.3 million in sales was taken on the first four days of opening as the public instantly warmed to this massive new store – the biggest electrical retail outlet in the UK.