GAME sees profit and revenue fall in half-year results
"Market dynamics in the UK were challenging during our peak trading period"
UK retailer GAME has revealed its half year results for the 26 week period ended 23 January 2016, showing a drop in both profit and revenue.
Revenue stood at £549.2 million, compared to £585.9 million for the 26 weeks ended 24 January 2015. Profit before tax fell from £33.2 million to $22.5 million. Adjusted EBITDA for the 26 week period ended 23 January 2016 was £33.1 million.
"Operating in the fast-paced video games industry continues to present both opportunities and challenges to our business. Market dynamics in the UK were challenging during our peak trading period, although sales trends improved in the last week of December and first three weeks of January," said CEO Martyn Gibbs.
"In January we launched a review of the UK business and are committed to rapidly implementing measures to respond to current market trends. As well as pursuing commercial opportunities we are focussed on driving improvements in the consumer proposition and realising operational efficiencies to improve our performance. In Spain the Group delivered another strong performance in the first half, with increased sales, profits and market share."
GAME reported that 870,000 new customers had signed up to its loyalty programmes in the UK and Spain and its website had recieved 5.7 per cent more unique visitors than last year. There have also been over 3 million GAME app downloads to date.
"I remain confident in the prospects for the Group. We are making good progress driving retail and business diversification, with strong growth delivered in higher margin categories such as preowned phones and tablets, PC accessories and licensed merchandise. In addition, sales of digital content were up almost 10 per cebt and our customer engagement metrics remain positive. At the same time we expect the impact of falling legacy software sales to lessen in the future.