Music and book retailer HMV Group today reported falling Christmas sales and a sharp drop in first-half profits. The company's CEO Alan Giles also announced that he would be leaving HMV in December, to pursue non-executive directorships.
HMV said like-for-like sales in the five weeks to January 7 fell 2.7% compared to a 6.4% rise a year earlier.
Sales fell most steeply at HMV stores in the UK and Ireland - down 5.5% - while comparative sales at its Waterstone's chain of bookshops fell 2.4%. Only a stronger performance in Canada and Asia, where like-for-like sales over Christmas rose 6.9% and 4.6% respectively, helped sweeten the pill.
HMV makes around 90% of its profits in the second half of its financial year, which includes the key Christmas period.
Tough competition from supermarkets and Internet retailers cut £12.9m from operating profit to £2.8m in the six months to October 29 and earnings per share fell to nothing from 1.8 pence 12 months before.
Total sales, 75% of them coming from the UK and Ireland, slipped 0.1% to £759.7m during the six month period.
Analysts said HMV's share of the chart music market was under pressure from supermarkets while Internet based mail-order firms were mounting a strong challenge on back-catalogue music.
However they stressed that the company was on the recovery track from last September when it reported a 9.2% slump in same store sales for the UK and Ireland and warned of little sign of improvement.
