HMV said five trial stores featuring a “social hub” – with entertainment websites and games zones – had outperformed the rest of the chain .
The company now plans to convert 15 more stores this year and said all new stores would open in the new format.
HMV, which has a store at Kingsgate in Huddersfield, lifted underlying profits by 25% to £56.6m in the year to April 26. The figure comes at the top end of forecasts.
Chief executive Simon Fox said he was “mindful of the challenging economic outlook” but added that current trading was also in line with management expectations.
The trial stores – two of them at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 – were the cornerstone of a three-year revival plan unveiled by Mr Fox last year to revive HMV’s fortunes in the face of competition from digital music downloading and supermarkets.
“One year into our transformation programme, we are ahead of where we had planned to be, although there remains much more for us to do,” Mr Fox said.
He said the firm had put more focus on the higher growth games market – now accounting for 21% of UK and Ireland sales compared to 14% the year before. It had also rolled out technology such as MP3 players.
Overall sales at the group’s 250 stores in the UK and Ireland rose by 11.4%.
The group put this down to strong store sales and a better online offering – with new services such as HMV Jukebox, which gives customers unlimited access to more than 3m tracks for a single monthly payment.
