E-tail topples supermarkets in 2011

Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda and Morrisons have stalled in their bids to become the next major players in video games, ERA reports.

Based on Chart-Track figures, supermarkets accounted for 27.3 per cent of all games sold last year – that’s down 0.2 per cent from the previous year.

In terms of software value, supermarkets held steady year-on-year with 27.1 per cent market share.

Online retailers enjoyed the biggest spike and now account for more sales than supermarkets. 27.9 per cent of all games sold last year were sold over the internet.

The biggest loser was the ‘over the counter’ (OTC) category (generalists, specialists and multiples) which accounted for 44.9 per cent of the sector,down from 48.4 per centthe year before.

But ERA says that it is the generalists and multiples that brought this figure down, as specialist retailers – including troubled giant GAME – actually increased their market share year-on-year.

Inevitably the aggregation of quite different retailer types within OTC tends to obscure some important detail and it is worth pointing out that, despite the decline in OTC’s share of games sales, specialists outperformed the sector to improve their share over the year,” wrote ERA.