Wednesday, March 19, 2008
GameStop / EB to open 600 new games stores
GameStop reported the rise of its quarterly profit due to solid sales of games software, and said it plans to open up to 600 stores.
GameStop, whose headquarters are in Grapevine, Texas (a suburb of Dallas ) is the world's largest video game and entertainment software retailer. The company operates 5,000 retail stores throughout U.S., Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, Australia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Austria, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Portugal and Sweden.
Retail stores operate primarily under the GameStop and EB Games brands. In addition, the company runs two e-commerce websites, GameStop.com and EBgames.com, and also Game Informer magazine, GameStop's proprietary video and computer game publication.
In addition to video and computer games, GameStop sells magazines, strategy guides, entertainment DVDs, and other related merchandise. A major source of the company's profit is also buying used games and movies from its customers and selling them back at an increase. A new store concept called MovieStop, which focuses on selling movies rather than games, is currently building and operating stores in the Southeastern United States, including the Dallas area.
The company's net earnings were $189.8 million, or $1.14 a share for the fiscal fourth quarter ended Feb. 2, up from $129.8 million, or 81 cents per share, a year earlier
Revenue rose 24.4 percent to $2.87 billion from $2.30 billion.