HMV deadly serious about games

Games made up 21 per cent of the record revenues taken by HMV in its ‘best ever Christmas’, MCV can reveal.

As revealed by Mcvuk.com last week (14/01/09), the retailer defied the odds on the High Street to pull off its biggest ever Christmas – enjoying a three per cent like-for-like sales growth for the ten weeks to January 3rd.

CEO Simon Fox told MCV this week that the firm is deadly serious” about the category – and hoped to inherit games customers from High Street casualties Woolworths and Zavvi.

He said: Games represented 21 per cent of out total sales mix over Christmas. They grew in total terms year-on-year to close to 25 per cent. We saw good growth across all platforms and our top sellers reflected the market: Call Of Duty, Guitar Hero and Mario Kart Wii.

I really am very sad that Woolworths and Zavvi won’t be there any more. But as a retailer on the High Street, it’s our job to capture as much of that market as we can, and we do think we’re well placed to do that.

We’ve allocated more space to games in our stores over the last 12 months. We have introduced a pre-owned offer, as you know. We’re deadly serious about games. What we want to do is make sure as many of the previous Woolworths and Zavvi customers come to us – either on the High Street or online at HMV.com.”

Fox revealed that all of the 14 former Zavvi stores it has picked up from administrator Ernst & Young will be rebranded as HMV. None of the stores would be rebranded as HMV subsidiary Fopp said Fox, as had been reported in the national press.