Bucking headwinds for brick and mortar retailers, GameStop reported positive results for its holiday sales period on Friday, but its growth in collectibles sales slowed. Overall sales for the nine-week holiday period were up 10.6%, with same store sales up 11.8%. Sales in the U.S. grew faster (13.7%) than in stores outside the U.S. (up 7.9%).
The big growth was in new hardware, up 38.3% behind sales of the Nintendo Switch and Microsoft’s Xbox One X.
Collectibles sales, which include merch, tabletop games, and apparel, were up 19.4%, with toys and apparel the strongest subcategories, the company said. That’s impressive on its own, but it’s actually the lowest growth in collectibles for the year; collectibles sales in Q3 were up 26.5% (see "GameStop Converted 200 Stores To Be 50% Collectibles").
The company will take an impairment charge of $350 to $400 million for the quarter, writing down its acquisition of AT&T stores behind slowing upgrade cycles on mobile phones and a changing compensation structure by AT&T. That was bad news for investors, who punished the stock, driving the price down 11% in trading Friday.

Growth in Collectibles Declines
Posted by Milton Griepp on January 15, 2018 @ 2:57 am CT

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