HMV has shut nine shops as part of its plans to close 60 across the group as it seeks to cut costs.

The first round of shops to close were in smaller units in secondary locations, as well as in towns that have more than one outlet.

Shops in Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool, Nottingham, Brighton, Croydon, Ealing , Oldham and Plymouth shut on Sunday.  Another is expected by the end of this week.

Last month the retailer revealed it would shut 40 HMV stores and 20 Waterstone’s within 12 months.

A HMV spokesperson told the Bookseller magazine: “The stores we’ve just closed are pretty much secondary sites, leaving much larger superstores in place to ensure that we maintain our specialist offer in these locations. We’re currently in consultation with affected work colleagues, who we’re doing our best to redeploy to nearby stores where we can.

“We’ve begun the process of reviewing our store portfolio, with the main focus right now being locations where we have more than one store trading in close proximity to each other, which means we are broadly catering to the same public.”

Last month HMV warned on profits and also cautioned that it was in danger of breaching its banking covenants.

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