Digital up, pre-owned down as GameStop reports 4.6% sales drop

Global games retailer GameStop has fared better than the overall games market by posting a sales drop of just 4.6 per cent for the nine weeks ending December 29th.

Global sales for the period were $2.88bn. Like-for-like sales fell 4.4 per cent, with the US declining 3.5 per cent and international falling 6.4 per cent.

Hardware sales in the period fell 2.7 per cent despite 320,000 Wii U unit sales. New game software sales dipped 5.1 per cent while pre-owned nosedived by 15.6 per cent – a number GameStop blames on limited inventory due to fewer new titles released throughout 2012 and less promotional activity negatively impacted sales compared to last year”.

Digital sales were the exception, however, climbing over 40 per cent. Global e-commerce sales were up 20.5 per cent.

GameStop has changed fourth quarter predictions from between -7.0 per cent and -4.0 per cent to between -9.0 per cent and -7.5 per cent.

GameStop experienced mixed results during the holiday selling period. Our successful Wii U launch, strong digital growth and continued momentum in the mobile space were countered by a decline in store traffic,” CEO Paul Raines stated.

As a result, GameStop expects its fourth quarter 2012 earnings per share results to be at the low end of its current guidance range. Our strong market share positions us well for the future, and we look forward to new product launches in 2013.”