Amazon Takes The Home Entertainment Retail Top Spot

The latest retailer share figures from Kantar Worldpanel* show Amazon overtaking HMV to become the number one home entertainment retailer for the first time.

Amazon has grown its share of the market from 19.4% a year ago to 22.4% and has seen growth across all categories – music, video and games. It looks set to continue its strong run in 2012.

Fiona Keenan, Consumer Insight Director at Kantar Worldpanel, explains: “Amazon’s strong performance is down to a number of factors: it is typically really competitive on price, has a wide range of products with no restriction on display space, and is known for its very good customer service.”

The value of the home entertainment market fell by just under 4% compared with the same period last year, although this decline was lower than the 8% drop we saw in the run up to Christmas in 2010.

Fiona adds: “Despite Christmas being a popular time for shoppers to buy DVDs, games and music, spending was down on the same period last year. We saw a lot of retailers, particularly supermarkets, promoting savings on big releases like ‘Harry Potter’ when shoppers spent money elsewhere in store and this will have taken some value out of the market. The number of people buying items in the home entertainment market also declined this year.”

HMV conceded its top spot to Amazon, dropping its overall market share from 19.6% to 17.5%, as the retailer lost ground in both the video and music markets. The majority of this decline came through reduced sales in its high street stores, with the online arm of the business only falling slightly.

There were mixed performances for the grocers in this sector, with both Asda and Morrisons losing share. However, the top four supermarkets all feature in the leading 10 retailers.

* Published today for the 12 w/e 25 December 2011