Ranch
Stephany Nunneley
Friday, March 27, 2020, Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
Ranch
GameStop has announced plans to close about 320 stores this year.
GameStop executive vice president and chief financial officer Jim Bell said in a phone call to investors that the closure would "equal to or greater than" the 320 stores it closed last year.
"By 2020, we will continue to work to densify the number of stores worldwide, and we expect store closures to equal or exceed the net closures we see globally in fiscal 2019," Bell said (via Seeking Alpha).
"We continued to focus on optimizing our global store team in FY 2019, and closed 321 stores, including 333 stores closed and 12 stores opened. In FY 2020, we will continue our efforts to reduce store density, focusing on Maximize the product (productivity) of the entire fleet.
"It's important to emphasize that these store closures are a very specific and positive part of our denitration plan and have nothing to do with recent business trends. After several years of organic and inorganic growth, this process has resulted in unrealized to date Synergies of profit. So as we move sales to nearby stores, we expect these closures to have a positive impact on sales and growth. "
In the fourth quarter of the company's fiscal year, sales fell to $ 2.2 billion from $ 3 billion in the same period last year, a decrease of 28.4%. The overall decline in sales is due to a 26.1% drop in store sales at the end of the current console cycle.
Bell said late console cycles "put pressure on store traffic" due to the reduction in hosts, hardware, accessories, software and collectibles.
Software sales fell again by 27.8%, due to the launch of new consoles this holiday season and the decline in game releases during the quarter. The reasons for the decrease also include nine major titles from 2019 to 2020. Bell pointed out that the "highlights" this quarter were the titles of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Nintendo Switch.
Thank you, Gamasutra.