Game's sales rocket

Game’s total group sales – including its acquisition of Gamestation completed on May 2 – were up 89.1 per cent. Like-for-like sales jumped 44.1 per cent – excluding the Gamestation purchase – over the period.

Game chairman Peter Lewis said: “Game continues to experience strong growth within an expanding market.”

It said that the substantially lower margins on hardware compared with software, in addition to the lower margins from Gamestation, would lead to a decline of between 275 and 325 basis points on gross margins this year. Game’s gross margin for the 12 months to January 31 was 27.2 per cent.

Game said it expects the Competition Commission inquiry into its acquisition of Gamestation – which received provisional clearance on December 5 – to be completed at the end of January. It anticipates the total costs of the inquiry to be about£4.5 million, which will be non-recurring.

Lewis said: “We are very pleased with our performance for the year to date and we look forward to the key Christmas trading season. There is an unprecedented range of products for our customers albeit we anticipate that demand will outstrip supply particularly for the Nintendo Wii format.”