GameStop touts $1.7 billion in holiday sales

With a new year underway, many in the gaming industry are looking back on the last days of 2006 for a sense of how successful the holidays really were for publishers and retailers. Specialty retailer GameStop today offered an inkling of the season's tidings with the announcement that it brought in more than $1.7 billion in sales in the last nine weeks of the year. That tally is 29 percent more than the company managed to sell in the last nine weeks of 2005 and represents store-by-store sales growth of 23.9 percent.

GameStop chairman and CEO R. Richard Fontaine called the holiday season "one of the most successful ever" for the chain and said in a statement that this year's gaming market played to his company's strengths.

"The diversity of desired products made this a real game specialist's holiday,'" Fontaine said. "It was a season that rewarded the knowledge and advice given by our seasoned managers and game playing associates throughout the company."

Fontaine also noted encouraging trends for the company, including a broader array of customers getting into gaming, strong hardware sales despite shortages, and record sales of gift cards that will boost the company's revenues in 2007 as they are redeemed. The company's best-selling titles for the holiday season were Gears of War, Final Fantasy XII, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Guitar Hero 2, and WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2007.

In light of the holiday season's strong hardware sales, GameStop also bumped up its guidance for earnings per share and comparable store sales growth figures for investors. The company now expects diluted earnings per share of $1.58 to $1.60 for the quarter ($2.03 to $2.05 for the year) and comparable store sales growth between 22 percent and 23 percent (10 percent to 10.5 percent for the year). Previously, the company projected earnings per share of $1.53 to $1.59 for the quarter ($1.98 to $2.04 for the year) and a comparable store sales growth of 14 percent to 18 percent for the quarter (7 percent to 9 percent for the year).