Tough times continue at HMV

Sales and profits continued to fall at HMV as the firm puts its faith in gadgetry to turn fortunes around.

Total sales from continuing operations were £364.9m in the six months to 27 October, down 17.6% on the year before.

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The company's live music business, HMV Live, saw profits increase to £3.4m from 1.5m the previous year, but this still left the group with a pre-tax loss of £36.4m.

HMV is currently refitting many of its stores to sell technology such as MP3 players, headphones and tablet computers, as it fights to offset the decline of CD and DVD sales.

The firm said that 144 stores had been refitted by the end of October and sales of technology and related products had grown to 14% of sales, compared to 12% in 2010.

It said it expects this number to be much higher in the second half of the financial year.

HMV closed 15 'under performing stores' in the UK and Ireland during the period, leaving a portfolio of 252 stores.

These attempts to turn around the business have yet to convince investors, as the firm's shares fell almost 2% in early trading.

The company also released figures showing the worrying state of the retail environment in the run up to the key Christmas trading period.

In the 7 weeks to 17 December 2011, total HMV Retail like-for-like sales were down 13.2%, HMV said.

However, December to date excluded an additional Saturday trading day compared to last year, which was likely to make a materially positive impact to the eventual December like-for-like sales result, it added.

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