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GameStop Stock Jumps After Holiday Sales Surge

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Jan 8, 2009 11:00 am US/Central

GameStop Stock Jumps After Holiday Sales Surge

NEW YORK (AP) ― In what was a dismal holiday season for many store chains, video game retailer GameStop Corp. proved an exception.

The company said Thursday its sales for the November-December period jumped more than 22 percent, boosted by strong sales of new games. Same-store sales, or sales at stores open at least a year, grew 10.2 percent in the nine weeks between Nov. 2 and Jan. 3.

Same-store sales are a key indicator of retailer performance since they measure growth at existing stores rather than newly opened ones.

Grapevine, Texas-based GameStop's sales hit $2.86 billion during the holiday period, which is the busiest time of the year for video game sales.

As a result, the company raised the low end of its fourth-quarter earnings guidance by 2 cents to between $1.31 and $1.34 per share. Analysts predict a profit of $1.31 per share.

Three of the top five best-selling games were from Activision Blizzard Inc.: "Call of Duty: World at War," "Guitar Hero World Tour" and "World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King." Microsoft Corp.'s alien shooter "Gears of War 2" and Nintendo's "Wii Fit" were also among the top sellers.

Hardware sales were led by Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's Xbox 360.

GameStop's shares jumped $1.54, or 6.8 percent, to $24.15 in morning trading Thursday.

(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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