Press releases
Annual General Meeting: Trading Update to 3 July 2004
07/07/2004
Peter Lewis, the Chairman of GAME, Europe's leading retailer of video games, has made the following statement in advance of the Annual General Meeting at 10.00am today.
"In overall terms, the Board expects a satisfactory trading outcome for the year as a whole.
The Group said in April that all major new software releases would be in the second half of the year which, coupled with the release of Gameboy Advance SP in the first half of last year, would result in a reduction in sales for the comparable period. Hence, as anticipated, for the first 22 weeks of the current financial year to 3 July 2004, like for like sales were down by 14% and total sales were down by 9% compared to the same period last year. However, GAME has achieved significant gross margin improvements in excess of 150 basis points compared to the same period last year.
During the year GAME opened 32 new stores and now operates 580 stores and franchises in the UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Sweden and Denmark and we continue to evaluate opportunities for further expansion. In addition, our new state-of-the-art distribution facility in Basingstoke has just commenced operations.
GAME remains confident that the software release schedule in the second half of the year, which typically accounts for around two thirds of our annual turnover, is very strong. The release of high quality titles such as GTA - San Andreas, Halo 2, Gran Turismo 4, The Getaway 2, Half life 2 and Doom 3 will create significant demand. In addition, it is expected that in the autumn the PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles will be reduced in price from £140 and £130 respectively to a selling value around £100. In America, such price point reductions in the second quarter of this year have stimulated demand with Sony reporting that during the first week at the new price point, sales increased some 216 per cent and there was a continued sales growth of 141 per cent in the following two weeks, compared to pre-discount levels.
GAME is confident regarding the medium term outlook with Sony recently confirming that the European launch of their new handheld product 'PSP' is scheduled for the first half of 2005 along with the Nintendo Dual Screen. The release dates of Xbox2 and PlayStation 3 are not yet scheduled but are anticipated in late 2005 or 2006."
Enquiries
The GAME Group plc | Martin Long | +44 (0)1256 784085 |
Group Chief Executive | ||
| David Thomas | +44 (0)1256 784085 | |
| Group Finance Director | ||
| Simon Soffe | +44 (0)1256 784442 | |
| Head of PR | ||
| Brunswick | Jonathan Glass | +44 (0)20 7404 5959 |
| James Crampton |
