Red-hot HMV closing gap on rivals Amazon
HMV has reclaimed its position as Britain’s second-biggest entertainment retailer.
The news comes as bricks and mortar music stores buck the wider high street gloom by taking business from online rivals.
Data from Kantar Worldpanel showed the chain posted its strongest performance since it collapsed into administration in 2013. Rescued by retail turnaround firm Hilco, it increased its share of the music, games and DVD market by 2 percentage points to 16.9 per cent in the 12 weeks to April 10 from the previous year.
It overtook Tesco, up half a percentage point to 16.1 per cent, to close the gap on market leader Amazon, down 0.6 percentage points to 22 per cent.
Overall high street spending on entertainment products fell by 2 per cent over the period compared with a 12 per cent drop online.
Kantar Worldpanel director Fiona Keenan said: “HMV has focused on creating an in-store environment that excites consumers like it did in its heyday. More than half its sales this quarter came from customers who hadn’t planned to make a purchase, higher than the market average of 38 per cent.”
Music was the best performing category, down 1 per cent compared with falls of 6 per cent for video and 8 for games.
Stores accounted for 77 per cent of games sales, their highest share for five years, with Game, Tesco and Asda all performing better in store than online.
The video sector was boosted by the release of the latest James Bond movie, Spectre, with nearly half of all copies sold going through Tesco’s tills.
There were record declines in fashion sales, according to April’s British Retail Consortium-KPMG sales monitor. Total retail sales were flat but down 0.9 per cent on a like-for-like basis.
BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson, pictured, said: “Some retailers are evidently more susceptible to the effects of lower consumer confidence and a higher proportion of disposable income going into leisure and entertainment.”