 HMV says it hopes sales will improve by Christmas |
Music and books retailer HMV has said internet sales and price cutting have helped its performance. Sales at HMV's website are up 150% on a year ago and on Thursday it launched hmvdigital.com, which it described as "an improved digital download service".
The firm has also officially launched the Waterstone's website, which offers more than two million book titles.
However, like-for-like group sales were down 3.7% in the 12 weeks to September 23 on the same period a year ago.
HMV bought Ottakar's bookshops earlier this year, and when its sales were taken into account, overall sales rose 9.5%.
'Difficult trading'
Like-for-like sales at HMV stores fell 5.4% on the same period last year, but this was an improvement on the previous nine weeks when its sales at music stores plunged 17%.
HMV said it had introduced a simpler, low price structure in its High Street stores as it sets itself up for the Christmas trade.
Chairman Carl Symon said: "The markets in which the group operates, particularly music, continue to experience very difficult trading conditions."
But he said that integrating Ottakar's within Waterstone's and "ramping up" its online outlets were its "first major steps to becoming a truly integrated, multi-channel retailer".
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