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Business News HMV Timeline Retail
HMV’s fortunes turn
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 18 January 2008
After years of doom and gloom, some good news from the HMV Group. The retailer says its pre-tax profits this year will be at the upper end of market expectations, with the HMV stores seeing a 14.1% year on year increase in pre-Christmas sales.
The increase follows those much previously reported restructurings at the entertainment retail group, so needless to say bosses are claiming their new strategy is working.
CEO Simon Fox said in a statement: “Less than a year into our transformation programme, the initiatives we are undertaking to revitalise our business have helped to deliver a highly successful Christmas. Having stabilised the business, we will continue to focus on revitalising our store propositions as well as growing new channels to market and carefully managing margins and costs. The Group is, therefore, well positioned for the next phase of its turnaround”.
With HMV rivals Zavvi also reporting an overall increase in pre-Christmas sales are we seeing an uplift in music retail? Probably not – DVD and gaming sales are still increasingly important to both high street retailers – though the pre-Christmas uplift in physical music sales does remind us that despite declines CDs are, for the time being, still an important part of the business.
