The food sector seems to have been a clear winner, and the chilly run up to Christmas was enough to help most fashion retailers get out of jail. Among the big boys, Marks & Spencer did well, as predicted, and there was relief that sales at both Argos and Boots, generally expected to have a bad time, held firm.
If one sector could be picked out as the real loser this Christmas, it was home entertainment. However, the picture was patchy, with private company Virgin reporting an increase in like-for-like sales but the woes of HMV and the collapse of MVC showing this is a sector in long-term decline.
Yesterday's news that HMV chief executive Alan Giles has decided to call it a day is a shame. You'd struggle to find a more affable chief executive in the retail sector. But more importantly he is widely perceived to have done a good job in his eight years in charge, particularly in leading one of the biggest retail flotations of recent years.
After such a decent innings, no one could blame Giles for deciding to leave, but the fact he is staying on for another year would seem to douse newspaper speculation that the state of his marketplace has got the better of him.
There is no doubt the future of entertainment retailing faces some huge structural questions. Online sales and digital downloads are killing CD sales and it is only DVDs that are carrying the sector along. It will surely only be a matter of time before film and video downloading starts to have the same effect as iTunes.
Giles's departure will raise uncertainty about HMV, especially because it coincides with chairman David Kappler stepping down and follows shortly after Brian McLaughlin retired from running Waterstone's. There could also be a question mark hanging over the potential takeover of Ottakar's, very much Giles's baby but a deal forged in much healthier market conditions and at a much higher price than is likely to be achieved now.
Everything now hangs on the calibre of Giles's successor. The quality of his or her plans to revive the business, and their vision for what an entertainment retailer should look like over the next decade, will be absolutely crucial in determining what future HMV has.
No comments yet