BILLBOARD
September 17, 2005
HMV EXPANDS IN CANADA, RETURNS TO DOWNTOWN VANCOUVER
BY LARRY LEBLANC
TORONTO - With 10 stores opening in its 2006 fiscal year, HMV Group is
bullish about Canada.
HMV Canada, which has 107 existing stores, accounts for a market-leading 25%
of the country's music sales and 13% of DVD/video sales, according to industry
estimates.
This summer, HMV opened three outlets in New Brunswick and two in British
Columbia. This month it will open outlets in Lasalle, Quebec, and Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan, with two more Toronto stores due within the year.
More immediate is HMV's return to downtown Vancouver, which it left five
years ago. The company has acquired Virgin Entertainment Group's sole Canadian
Virgin Megastore. The 40,000-square-foot, three-level store on the busy corner of
Robson and Burrard streets will be HMV's largest outlet in Canada.
HMV Canada president Humphrey Kadaner calls the store "the best piece of real
estate in the country; the traffic is immense."
The store ceased trading under the Virgin name Sept. 4; it is to reopen Sept.
11. HMV already operates 9 stores in the greater Vancouver area including an
outlet in nearby Burnaby opened Sept. 1.
"This gives us the brand authority and presence in an incredibly important
market," U.K.-based HMV Group CEO Alan Giles says. HMV has nine other stores in
the Vancouver area.
"With HMV's integrated marketing efforts nationally, this is really going to
help them in the Vancouver market," Universal Music Canada president/CEO Randy
Lennox says.
Giles says HMV Group's expansion demonstrates its confidence in the Canadian
market. A year ago, he says, he was looking at Canada as "a mature business. I
couldn't see us opening any more stores."
But now, Giles says, "Humphrey and his team have created a business model
that changed the threshold of viability."
For the 2004/2005 financial year, HMV Group's operating profit for Canada (as
HMV North America) rose 217%, from £2.4 million ($4.4 million) in the prior
year to £7.6 million ($13.9 million) on a 52-week basis.
That was aided by shuttering the group's U.S. stores, which recorded a £2
million ($3.65 million) operating loss the previous year. HMV's 2004/2005 sales
in Canada rose 3.1% to £153.8 million ($281.1 million), with comparable-store
sales growing 13.5%. Kadaner says DVDs are a major contributor, accounting for
41% of HMV Canada's 2004/2005 sales in value.
Under Kadaner, HMV closed its last seven U.S. stores. It had launched with
two stores in New York in 1990. Beleaguered by losses, the retailer shut its
U.S. headquarters in 1998.
"The organization committed to some poor real estate deals," Giles concedes,
"and maybe we didn't run that business as well as we could."
Kadaner emphasizes one major difference between the retail landscapes in
Canada and the United States. "We have a market [in Canada] where the majority of
music sales still go through retailers where music is a core part of their
business," he says. "That's not the case in the U.S."
HMV arrived in Canada in 1987 with 20 stores and an estimated 2.5% market
share after acquiring the assets of the Mister Sound and Sherman Music chains.
Kadaner, who reports to HMV Group COO Brian McLaughlin in London, was
appointed HMV North America president in 2003.
"Humphrey is the best HMV Canada president in its 20-year-old history,"
Lennox says. "He listens, he understands partnerships and he knows how to break
records." ••••