GameStop is continuing its unusual, no-nonsense approach to earnings season.
The Texas-based specialty retailer known for its namesake video game business reported that its second quarter sales dipped around 4% to $1.136 billion this year, down from $1.183 billion in Q2 2021. As it’s done in recent quarters under the leadership of CEO Matt Furlong and Chairman Ryan Cohen, the company issued a bare-bones press release devoid of the typical PR fluff known to accompany such things.
On a lean, shockingly-short earnings call that lasted less than nine minutes, Furlong provided a high-level update on the business while acknowledging the work that’s been done to strengthen the company’s operations.
“When our board began turning over early last year, GameStop was saddled with significant debt, decaying systems, limited employee depth, and a host of other issues,” Furlong said. “This is why we spent the second half of 2021 and the first half of 2022 making up for years of underinvestment in modernizing the business. The upshot is that we now have a more diversified product catalog, strengthened fulfillment network, improved tech stack and e-commerce presence, and a fortified corporate infrastructure.”
GameStop divides its current business into three primary sectors: Hardware and Accessories, Software, and Collectibles.
Of the three, collectibles is showing growth with Q2 sales growing to $223.2 million versus $177.2 million during the same period last year. Furlong says that the company is looking to grow its collectibles business in the long term as it seeks to further diversify beyond video games and into new initiatives like NFTs and Web3 projects.
If this sounds familiar, it’s likely due to GameStop’s previous efforts in the collectibles space. The company previously purchased the ThinkGeek brand and experimented with an increased collectibles mix — which even included comic books and graphic novels at one point — a few years back.