Tesco is hardly just a food retailer, not only do they sell all kinds of tech they've got their own MVNO (Tesco Mobile), they've been selling rebranded tech (TVs, DVD players etc.) under their Technika brand for years, they've got a bank, credit cards, insurance and so on.
It's for this reason that I wonder why we are even seeing a news item about it. Retailers like Tesco, Argos, Asda and so on, buy hardware from OEMs all the time and put their brand names on them. I wonder why this one is special?
In a company where management's experience is food retail and their approach towards customers is "food first", developing a conglomerate approach into tech does not inspire a strong sense of direction. Just my view.
I don't think there attitude is really "food first", the food gets people in through the front door every week, but given the placement of things other than food (think DVDs, games, books, and mobile phones) in my local store their profit is likely to be far higher on things other than food where they don't have to squeeze the margins quite so hard.
I used quotes on food first because this is what Tesco management repeatedly said on the annual general meeting this past june/july... I was quoting them.
