By Christina Mlynski
The world's largest multichannel video game retailer had abrlot to be cheerful about this holiday sales season.
GameStop, which is one of our top businessesbrto watch out for this year, reported $3.15 billion of total global sales,brup 9.3% for the nine-week holiday period ending Jan. 4, which is compared to abryear earlier.
Total comparable store sales jumped 10.2%, which was drivenbrby new video game console sales, including Xbox One and PlayStation 4 — as demonstratedbrby the 99.8% increase in new hardware sales.
Consequently, GameStop secured the top market share positionbrin the nation and in most of the countries in which the company currentlybroperates, GameStop CEO Paul Raines explains.
Additionally, GameStop had the highest software andbraccessory attach ratio of any retailer for both new game consoles.
“I am pleased to report that the extensive planning by ourbrentire team over the past year to prepare for the new console launches paidbroff,” he says. “Building off this momentum, we are in an excellent position tobrdrive the global adoption of the next generation of new video game products inbr2014.”
GameStop's global multichannel sales — mobile, web-in-storebrand pick-up at store — rose 57% from last year's holiday period due tobrcustomers utilizing multiple ways to purchase video game products.
During the holiday selling period, total site traffic rankedbrin the top 20 of all online retailers.
Based on these holiday results, Grapevine's own GameStop nowbrexpects its fourth quarter and full year store sales to be at the high end ofbrthe current range.
Fourth quarter earnings per share are expectedbrto range of $1.85 to $1.95. Additionally, full year earnings per share willbrrange of $2.96 to $3.06.