Multichannel sales surge as GameStop reports festive growth

GameStop has reported like-for-like sales growth of 10.2 per cent for the nine weeks ending January 4th.

That breaks down as 7.1 per cent growth in the US and 17.4 per cent internationally. The chain’s total global sales were up 9.3 per cent year-on-year at $3.15bn.

New hardware sales, unsurprisingly, grew 99.8 per cent. Xbox 360 and PS3 software sales, however, fell 22.5 per cent although pre-owned game sales grew seven per cent.

Multichannel sales (encompassing online, mobile, in-store web and in-store pickup) jumped 57 per cent year-on-year. Within that, in-store pickup grew 120 per cent and mobile sales grew 47 per cent. GameStop.com sales grew 37 per cent.

Sales of digital games climbed 14.9 per cent to $207.3m.

I am pleased to report that the extensive planning by our entire team over the past year to prepare for the new console launches paid off,” CEO Paul Raines said.

Our outstanding execution during the holidays resulted in GameStop securing the number one market share position in the US and in most of the countries in which we operate today.

GameStop also had the highest software and accessory attach ratio of any retailer for both new consoles. Building off this momentum, we are in an excellent position to drive the global adoption of the next generation of new video game products in 2014.”