Entertainment retailer Zavvi enjoyed a strong first Christmas, driven by spectacular growth in game sales.

Like-for-like sales rose 10.2 per cent in the four weeks to January 5 and online sales were up by more than 70 per cent, compared with last Christmas when the business still traded as Virgin Megastores.

The sales growth was driven by games, which enjoyed a stunning like-for-like rise of 62.7 per cent, despite shortages of the Nintendo Wii and DS consoles.

DVDs continued to perform well at Zavvi, with comparable sales growth of 6.4 per cent. However, music was weak, with like-for-likes down 11.6 per cent, which Zavvi managing director Simon Douglas attributed to a weak release schedule.

Overall, however, Douglas was happy with Zavvi's performance. “To perform as well as we have during such an important trading period is a huge positive.”

Topics