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Business News HMV Timeline Retail
HMV market share slips 1.5% in administration quarter
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 19 April 2013
HMV saw its share of the entertainment retail market slip just 1.5% year-on-year in the first quarter of this year, despite the firm shuttering nearly half its stores during this period after falling into administration in January. Though, of course, the closing down sales that resulted from the administration, plus the rally of consumer support seen once the firm was truly on the brink, will have helped.
According to the latest data from Kantar Worldpanel, in the quarter up to 17 Mar, HMV had a 17.6% market share of UK entertainment retail, just 1.5% down on the same period in 2012. Amazon’s share continued to grow in the same period, up 2.9% to 21.8%, while Tesco, Sainsbury’s and ASDA all saw their shares increase during the quarter too.
Commenting on the latest stats, Kantar Worldpanel’s Consumer Insight Director Fiona Keenan told reporters: “The supermarkets have had a really strong first quarter, driven predominantly by the huge success of [James Bond film] ‘Skyfall’. Their aggressive pricing and large advertising campaigns lead to them taking over 80% of its sales to date”.
Regards HMV, Keenan noted that – while the company had held up OK in the quarter, all things considered – it is still in decline. Amazon is leading in growth terms, she added, because it succeeds in both the physical and digital product domain.
Keenan: “The growth of digital music has played an important part in [Amazon’s] performance. Sales of digital music grew by 12% in quarter one compared with the same period last year and now account for almost half (47%) of all music purchases. Amazon has been fast to react to this trend, making it the largest music retailer and helping to push up its overall share within entertainment by 2.9 percentage points. HMV will need to act quickly to regain some of this market”.
