GameStop sales declined nearly 20% in the holiday quarter, which missed expectations by $260 million, according to SeekingAlpha. The sales decline, from $2.2 billion in the November through January quarter was much sharper than declines in previous quarter; sales were down only 9.1% in the company’s fiscal Q3 (see “GameStop Cuts Loss on Sales Decline“). GameStop even had sales help form an extra week in this year’s Q4, which had 14 weeks vs. 13 in the year ago period.
Sales in the collectibles category, which includes tabletop games and merch, were down over 25% to $233.7 million vs. $313.2 million in the year ago quarter.
Net income for the quarter increased from $48.2 million in the previous year to $63.1 million this year on lower expenses, although that was also a miss.
For the year, overall sales were down around 11% to $5.3 billion, from $5.9 billion the previous year. Collectibles took a bigger hit, down 22% to $764 million, from $965 million in the year ago period.
GameStop did eke out a profit for its fiscal year; although it was only $6.7 million, that was a big improvement from the $313.1 million loss the previous year.
The pace of store closings has slowed; GameStop had 4,169 stores worldwide at the end of the year, including 2,915 stores in the U.S., vs. 4,413 stores worldwide and 2,949 stores in the U.S. the previous year. The biggest drop was in Europe, where GameStop closed 186 stores in the year (and opened 4). In the U.S., GameStop closed 69 stores, and opened 35.
Source: ICV2
