High Street entertainment market share up year-on-year, says Kantar

New data from Kantar Worldpanel indicates that the market share of GAME, HMV and Argos has increased on the year before.

The firm’s new research – for the 12 weeks ending September 27th 2015 – shows that HMV was the strongest performer, with its share of the entertainment retail market rising 1.3 per cent year-on-year.

Meanwhile GAME’s share rose 1.1 per cent and Argos’ increased one per cent. Amazon’s slice of the market, however, dipped 1.2 per cent.

Additionally, Kantar has revealed that 68.4 per cent of the all physical entertainment sales for the past quarter came from the High Street – an increase on 64.6 per cent for the same period last year.

The company also says this is the highest performing quarter for the High Street since May 2014, when Frozenmania hit retail.

The strongest performance during this quarter actually came from the games market, which saw a seven per cent increase in High Street spend. But though it had a strong impact on the High Street, the games sector actually dipped eight per cent over the last quarter due to the blockbuster launch of Destiny in the same period for the year before. Removing Destiny from the equation, Kantar says, would result in the games market actually being up 14 per cent year-on-year.

However, Kantar predicts that online retail could well claw back this lost market share over the next quarter due to the upcoming Black Friday.

While online is losing share at the expense of the high street, the convenience factor is still incredibly appealing to consumers who are simplifying the process further by opting to shop directly through their smartphones,” strategic insight director Fiona Keenan said.

Mobile purchases accounted for almost 10 per cent of online physical entertainment sales this quarter, up 23 per cent on this time last year. With over 37 million people owning a smartphone, this is a significant opportunity for retailers to tap into.”

She continues: The week of deals leading up to Black Friday is typically the biggest of the year for both video and games, and given Amazon’s significant focus on the campaign we’d expect it to come out on top again. But while sales figures resulting from the campaign are impressive, past offers have appealed to shoppers that already buy these types of products, rather than enticing new shoppers into the market and really driving incremental spend.”

Below are the firm’s full findings on where consumers have been buying videos, games and music: