GAME shares rocket on strong results

Shares in The GAME Group soared in early trading on Wednesday after the retailer released its financial results for the year ending January 31, 2009.

The company posted record sales and profits, prompting a surge of investor interest and a 13 per cent jump in its stock at the time of writing.

CEO Lisa Morgan was also upbeat about the coming year, despite a fall in the figures for the first part of fiscal 2009.

"Actually, trading to date is slightly better than we expected," she said this morning. "We've always felt that negative like-for-likes were very likely for the first-half, given the strength of the comparable period last year when we had a combination of factors that delivered a record first-half trading performance for us.

"Last year, we saw exceptionally strong post Christmas sales of Wii products which were further boosted by some phenomenal first-half launches including products like Wii Fit and Mario Kart and, of course, Grand Theft Auto IV. This year, we have a very solid but a more normal new release schedule and we’ve seen lower year-on-year hardware revenues.

"All things considered, we know we have to work extremely hard to deliver even greater value for our customers and maximise every single sale. Across the Group, we are very focused on profitability and we are doing every thing we can to drive gross margins. We are seeing some improvements with margin up about 150 basis points, driven by an increase in sales of higher margin software and pre-owned."