For gamers who reside within the US, GameStop is perhaps one of the first port of calls when it comes to all things related to digital entertainment. With recent news that the company has since brought in new executives from Amazon in order to shift focus from retail and into online sales, it's also been revealed that net profits for the gaming conglomerate have seen an increase since the beginning of this year.
In a recent financial report, GameStop has released its sales figures for Q1 2021, which ended on May 1. The figures indicate that net sales increased by 25.1% to $1.28 billion. This is nearly a $200 million profit increase compared to last year, with the report stating that Q1 2020 revealed sales were up to $1.02 billion. This is all despite stores being closed across Europe, which was brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The financial report splits this into more details, indicating that more people seemed to purchase consoles and other accessories than games, with 55.1% of the total sales going to hardware, which is equivalent to about $703.5 million, while 31.2%, or $397.9 million, of it went to software. Whether this is related to recent developments that GameStop would start selling PC tech such as GPUs is difficult to say at this stage, but the fact that most of the profits come from hardware could arguably relate to it.
As the company looks to shift towards a focus more on online sales, with GameStop recently constructing a 700,000 square foot building, it appears the gaming corporation is continuing to thrive and make changes wherever it can, despite the global pandemic that has been ravishing much of the planet for the past 15 or so months. The announcements about GameStop's shift into e-commerce caused a surge in stock as former CEO, Ryan Cohen, revealed the big news which could see the company take on the might of other online gaming giants, such as Steam.
Many will also remember the financial fiasco that occurred earlier this year when GameStop's stock skyrocketed after a forum on Reddit kick-started the movement by buying up as much stock as possible to raise its value. The value began to rise after Cohen joined the executive board, which caused the company's stock to go up nearly 250%. Despite this, the controversy eventually died down and GameSpot continues to be one of the biggest retailers of video games on the market. Its recent financial records show that this could increase as the world recovers from the virus.
Source: Investor.GameSpot