GAME confident of record financials, reports strong Xmas sales

Leading UK videogames retailer GAME Group has announced details of its trading over Christmas, with the chain outperforming the industry average once again to deliver a 9 per cent sales increase during the period.

Reporting on the five weeks to January 3rd, GAME announced a like for like sales increase of 5.6 per cent as well as that impressive 9 per cent overall sales growth figure, and commented that software unit sales to date this financial year are up 25 per cent at the chain.

These figures compare with ChartTrack's final figures for the UK software market in 2003, which showed a 15 per cent increase in unit sales resulting in a 7 per cent climb in value - both figures which GAME managed to outperform significantly.

However, the UK videogames market as a whole saw its value decline by 1.5 per cent overall in 2003 as a result of significant price drops to console hardware, a factor which also distorts GAME's short term value comparisons.

However, the company points out that although cheaper consoles mean less short term revenue, the larger installed bases provide medium and long term benefit - and with the UK installed base of all next generation platforms increasing by 60 per cent to over 10 million units in 2003, the benefits to software sales will be massive.

GAME expects to show record sales and profits for its full financial year, which ends on January 31st - making this the fourth consecutive year in which the company has broken its own profit records.