HMV retakes physical music sales top spot as vinyl makes a comeback
HMV has noted a turnaround in its fortunes after retaining the number one spot for UK physical music sales from Amazon during Christmas.
Following the store’s slump into administration in 2012 linked to the rise of digital sales and piracy, turnaround specialist Hilco bought 132 HMV stores, and all nine branches of Fopp in a £50m deal.
The firm announced overall sales increased by 17.5 per cent to £365.7m in the year running up to 31 December 2014 - up from £311.2m in the previous year. Quoting Offical Charts Company figures, HMV announced that it was responsible for a total of a third of UK DVD and CD sales in the two weeks before Christmas.
Mounting the sales offensive was the spike in vinyl album sales which increased by 170 per cent - accounting for more than 350,000 sales - in 2014. Furthermore, CD sales rose 1.5 per cent to 20 million copies granting the company a 27 per cent share of the market.
Paul McGowan, chief executive of Hilco, said: “HMV has captured more and more market share in a year when major new movie releases have been scarce and there have been only a few major album successes.
"With a bumper year of new releases already planned for 2015 we expect to have overall growth in like-for-like DVD and BluRay sales as well as continued growth in the physical music.”
This comes after the YouGov BrandIndex last August predicted that HMV would “bounce back” as it was encouraging footfall with live gigs and record signings.