Butikskedjan Gamestop har sannolikt börjat märka av den allt snabbare övergången till digitalt nedladdade spel, och meddelar nu att mellan 180 och 200 butiker som underpresterat kommer att stängas, enligt Games Industry. Finanschefen James Bell menar dock att 95% av butikerna fortfarande går med vinst, men tillägger att fler nedläggningar kan komma under de närmsta två åren:
"While that [95%] is an impressive statistic, we have a clear opportunity to improve our overall profitability by de-densifying our chain. That work is well underway. We are on track to close between 180 and 200 underperforming stores globally by the end of this fiscal year. And while these closures were more opportunistic, we are applying a more definitive, analytic approach, including profit levels and sales transferability, that we expect will yield a much larger tranche of closures over the coming 12 to 24 months."
Gamestops reboot-planer inkluderar bland annat nya butiker med fokus på retro samt mer esport:
"We expect our year-over-year sales to be down over the next three to four quarters reflecting the end of [the console] cycle. Compounding this negative impact on sales is the fact that console makers have confirmed the launch earlier than they have in the past. We anticipate that this will lead to much lighter title slate through the rest of 2019 and early 2020 given the end of the cycle timing for current consoles.
As a result, at this time we expect a percentage decline of comparable same-store sales for 2019 to be in the low teens, which includes a difficult comparable sales challenge from last year, as we're up against blockbuster titles like Red Dead Redemption 2, 2018's number one volume title, without a comparable launch in 2019."
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