GAME Announces Store Closures After Profits Slump

Game has announced that it will be closing approximately 89 stores between now and Christmas 2013 to reduce to number of stores to 550. The GAME group chief executive Ian Shepherd said that this includes 15 that had already been closed since the start of 2011.

Throughout the last year GAME’s UK & Ireland store count decreased by 38 to 639 outlets. This comes after GAME  released figures stating that turnover fell from £1.772bn to £1.625bn, with overall sales falling 8.3 per cent year-on-year. UK & Ireland sales fell by 12.8 per cent and even online dropped by two per cent. Like-for-like UK sales dropped 9.8 per cent and overall sales by 6.7 per cent.

Pre-tax profits plunged from £90.4m last year to £37.8m. Operating profit fell from £88.6m to £28.5m.

For Q1 overall sales were down 14.3 per cent, pr 12.1 per cent like-for-like. UK & Ireland sales declined by 14.9 per cent, or 12.4 per cent like-for-like. However, GAME was keen to highlight the overall market decline of 9.9 per cent, pointing out that it “continues to outperform the UK market”.

Source: MCV