HMV has over taken Amazon to become Britain’s most succesful retailer of physical music.
The high street retailer has reclaimed its position just one year entering administration, with executives citing the continued revival in the popularity of vinyl as a major source of their rising figures.
According to The Telegraph reports, HMV’s vinyl sales increased 170 per cent year on year in 2014 and that their stores accounted for one in three DVD or CDs sold in the country in the fortnight leading up to Christmas.
The high street music and entertainment chain went into administration in 2013 with 223 shops and more than 4,000 jobs put at risk. However, 144 of the shops were bought by restructuring company Hilco three months later.
Paul McGowan, chief executive of Hilco, said: “HMV has captured more and more market share in a year when major new movie releases have been scarce and there have been only a few major album successes.
“With a bumper year of new releases already planned for 2015 we expect to have overall growth in like-for-like DVD and Blu-ray sales as well as continued growth in the physical music sector with vinyl also expected to continue its revival.”
McGowan previously spoke of the chain’s newfound profitability, declaring that the key to HMV’s success is to hold events that online retailers are unable to. Record labels, he says, “want someone who is industry relevant… We can get a band from Number Five to Number One in the charts by holding an event here.”