The two companies behind Warhammer miniature figures and Scalextric racing sets have enjoyed a good Christmas, while warning about the impact of the cost of living crisis.
Games Workshop – which last month struck a deal with Amazon to create a series based on Warhammer – achieved record sales of more than £200m in the six months to 31 December, its first half.
Sales of its Warhammer games, figurines and paints rose 4%with sales at its own shops up 9.8% and trade revenues 3.4% higher, and a small drop in online sales of 0.5%. Half-year pre-tax profits fell to £83.6m from £88.2m.
Kevin Rountree, the chief executive, said: “We set ourselves a higher sales growth goal, so while this is a record number, it isn’t where we wanted to be, particularly in the US, which was flat, at constant currency, against a record year last year.”
Games Workshop enjoyed booming sales during the Covid pandemic when people were stuck at home and pursued hobbies such as tabletop gaming.
The Scalextric and Airfix maker Hornby said sales between 1 October and 31 December, including the key Christmas period, were higher than the same period in 2021. As a result, sales for the financial year so far are ahead of last year by 6%.
“This has been driven by better availability of stock, price increases, and investment in e-commerce platforms and digital media,” it said. “However, these sales figures are behind budget due to the challenging consumer economic climate and will impact our full-year figures. Order book remains strong ahead of our 2023 product range releases.”
Hornby is launching a new product range this month, including a new control system for trains that uses Bluetooth technology to connect to phones or tablets.
The company is forecasting a “modest underlying loss before tax” for the year to the end of March.
Games Workshop said its global projects had been held back by the slow rollout of new IT systems. It gave staff a 3% pay rise last year, while some received up to 10% to benchmark their pay to market rates. To address Brexit-related staff vacancies, the firm has opened a sales office in Barcelona.
The results suggest Christmas may have been better than feared for some retailers, despite the worsening cost of living crisis. Annual consumer price inflation was 10.7% in November, down slightly from 11.1% in October, with energy and food bills soaring.
