Sales up at HMV

HMV’s group sales are up 1.8 per cent per cent for its financial year ending April 24th, the firm revealed in a pre-close statement.

Sales for its HMV stores have risen 4.3 per cent, while Waterstone’s sales are down six per cent.

The Group expects its year-end debt to be 67 million.

Meanwhile, for the 16-week period to April 24th, HMV sales are down 8.2 per cent. The firm blames strong comparatives to the period before, reduced level of marketing and the severe weather for the drop.

Despite this, the decline of sales at Waterstone’s has slowed for the 16-week period, down just 4.3 per cent.

The company states that it will beat the profits posted in 2009.

HMV, as expected, had a difficult fourth quarter, and we planned accordingly by tightly managing margins and discretionary costs,” said HMV boss Simon Fox.

However, the severe weather in early January and reduction in campaign activity in favour of preserving margin further impacted the like for like out-turn. Therefore, I am pleased to be able to confirm that the Group’s profit before tax will be in line with expectations, comfortably ahead of last year.

We are focused on progressing our new strategy laid out on 26 March 2010 to rapidly evolve HMV’s product mix, grow the new HMV Live division and continue to turn around the performance at Waterstone’s. We remain confident that these initiatives will position the Group to achieve our medium target for a sustainable 4.5 per cent net margin.”

Full details of HMV’s profits will be revealed on June 30th.