HMV’s multichannel efforts pay off

HMV’s efforts to boost its multichannel business appear to have paid off as the entertainment retailer has gained market share in the first three months of the year, according to the latest Kantar Worldpanel data.

HMV

The Entertainment Retail Barometer shows that HMV is catching up with online rival Amazon as it increased its market share by 1.7% to 19.2%, in the three months to 18 March.

Amazon has lost 2.5% of market share since the last quarter which was boosted by Christmas gifting. It now holds a 19.9% share of the total entertainment retail market.

The online marketplace did however increase its share by 2.7% year-on-year while HMV’s market share is still below its position last year.

HMV is attempting to grow its digital business to reverse its poor performance. Marketing and ecommerce director Mark Hodgkinson outlined his strategy to Marketing Week earlier this year.

Steps include offering digital versions of physical products at point of sale, a click and collect service, in-store WiFi to improve the customer experience, a raft of mobile apps and better online integration of its PureHMV loyalty programme.

An overall fall in sales across the sector has been driven by a £1m decline in spend on games, an area that HMV is hoping to make advances in following the instability at its rival Game.

Supermarkets Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s all made gains year-on-year. Tesco, however, which also made a play for the gaming sector in the wake of Game’s slip into administration last month, lost 2.3% of market share year-on-year and compared to the previous quarter.

Craig Armer, consumer research manager at Kantar Worldpanel, says: “The retail sector had a rocky start to 2012 with the bad weather taking its toll on retail footfall.

“This industry-wide trend has affected spend on entertainment products with sales down by 14.8% compared with the same period last year. The games market is the driving force here and has seen one million fewer buyers than it did twelve months ago.”

The Entertainment Retailer Barometer was introduced in February to track the market share of major players in the market.

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