HMV Hong Kong goes out of business
02-16-19, 01:08 PM
#1
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HMV Hong Kong goes out of business
https://variety.com/2018/biz/asia/hm...on-1203093811/
This news is a little over a month old, but it's sad to me. I've traveled to Hong Kong many times and have visited the HMV stores on numerous occasions. In fact, I was just there in 2017 and did a little BD and CD shopping. I've also bought stuff from their website on a few occasions. It was also a nice looking store and reminded me of the old days of these kinds of stores in the States.
I read another story that said HMV was months behind in their rent and were facing eviction in some of their locations. When I was last there in 2017, I visited 2 stores and one was relatively busy, but the other was super slow. I can imagine that this past year business probably took a turn for the worse.
Seems like streaming is also slowly killing physical media in Asia.
HMV, one of the most famous names in entertainment retail, can no longer resist the tide of digital disruption. The HMV retail chain will close its doors in Hong Kong with immediate effect.
The announcement was made some five years after HMV Retail in the U.K. filed for bankruptcy. But the brand was kept going in Hong Kong, where it had operated for more than 25 years, under the parentage of HMV Digital China, a stock market-listed company which is also involved in artist management, distribution and productions of films, television programs, music production and money lending. At one stage HMV Digital China (formerly known as China 3D Digital) saw the HMV outlets, not only as an ongoing retail proposition, but also as a vehicle for expansion into mainland China.
This week, however, HMV Digital China admitted defeat and announced the voluntary winding up of the Hong Kong retail unit. Liquidators have been appointed and may attempt to find new investors for a restart of the retail business.
HMV Digital’s explanation of how it retail operations arrived at this point, paint an ugly picture. Revenues are down 41% in the first 11 months of this year, compared with 2017, despite the company’s shift away from CDs and DVDs and into related electronics, games and toys.
“The emergence of AirPods has resulted in a significant drop in sales for our bestselling earphones, coupled with a seemingly saturated market for speakers, the lack of improvement in the traditional audio-visual sales and a general change in the economic environment, which led to an overall decline in stores sales and in turn a rapid decrease in sales for HMV Retail in the past few months. Suffering from operational difficulties, HMV Retail was unable to escape from the crushing force of the wheel of history,” the HMV Digital China said in a regulatory filing.
The HMV retail business in Canada had closed all its 102 stores last year. It explained that on the impact of online streaming media.
The announcement was made some five years after HMV Retail in the U.K. filed for bankruptcy. But the brand was kept going in Hong Kong, where it had operated for more than 25 years, under the parentage of HMV Digital China, a stock market-listed company which is also involved in artist management, distribution and productions of films, television programs, music production and money lending. At one stage HMV Digital China (formerly known as China 3D Digital) saw the HMV outlets, not only as an ongoing retail proposition, but also as a vehicle for expansion into mainland China.
This week, however, HMV Digital China admitted defeat and announced the voluntary winding up of the Hong Kong retail unit. Liquidators have been appointed and may attempt to find new investors for a restart of the retail business.
HMV Digital’s explanation of how it retail operations arrived at this point, paint an ugly picture. Revenues are down 41% in the first 11 months of this year, compared with 2017, despite the company’s shift away from CDs and DVDs and into related electronics, games and toys.
“The emergence of AirPods has resulted in a significant drop in sales for our bestselling earphones, coupled with a seemingly saturated market for speakers, the lack of improvement in the traditional audio-visual sales and a general change in the economic environment, which led to an overall decline in stores sales and in turn a rapid decrease in sales for HMV Retail in the past few months. Suffering from operational difficulties, HMV Retail was unable to escape from the crushing force of the wheel of history,” the HMV Digital China said in a regulatory filing.
The HMV retail business in Canada had closed all its 102 stores last year. It explained that on the impact of online streaming media.
This news is a little over a month old, but it's sad to me. I've traveled to Hong Kong many times and have visited the HMV stores on numerous occasions. In fact, I was just there in 2017 and did a little BD and CD shopping. I've also bought stuff from their website on a few occasions. It was also a nice looking store and reminded me of the old days of these kinds of stores in the States.
I read another story that said HMV was months behind in their rent and were facing eviction in some of their locations. When I was last there in 2017, I visited 2 stores and one was relatively busy, but the other was super slow. I can imagine that this past year business probably took a turn for the worse.
Seems like streaming is also slowly killing physical media in Asia.
02-16-19, 01:24 PM
#2
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Re: HMV Hong Kong goes out of business
That sucks. I've only visited Hong Kong once back in 1997 but I remember hitting a nice big HMV store there and shopping for LDs of HK films, it was a great store.
At least a lot of the HMV locations in Canada were bought out by Sunrise Records, who are also apparently saving a lot of the HMVs in the UK. Too bad about the HK locations though.
At least a lot of the HMV locations in Canada were bought out by Sunrise Records, who are also apparently saving a lot of the HMVs in the UK. Too bad about the HK locations though.
02-16-19, 05:07 PM
#3
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Re: HMV Hong Kong goes out of business
There was a big HMV store at a mall in Mongkok that was pretty damn cool. I threw down a bit of cash and picked up a lot of blu’s there.
03-23-19, 03:34 PM
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Re: HMV Hong Kong goes out of business
I think Tower in Japan will be ok for awhile yet. Music streaming still hasn't really caught on there (video streaming either for that matter) and there is still a very healthy collector mentality over there that makes people want to buy physical things like CDs and vinyl. There's also a big chain of used music stores over there called Disc Union, they sell tons of vinyl and CDs. Oh, and the Tower Records in Shibuya is incredible, best retail music/media store I've ever visited. Japan also has a great chain called Yodobashi Camera, basically Best Buy on tons of steroids, and unlike Best Buy, they still have an amazing amount of physical media for sale.
03-25-19, 02:14 PM
#6
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Re: HMV Hong Kong goes out of business
Originally Posted by cultshock
I think Tower in Japan will be ok for awhile yet. Music streaming still hasn't really caught on there (video streaming either for that matter) and there is still a very healthy collector mentality over there that makes people want to buy physical things like CDs and vinyl. There's also a big chain of used music stores over there called Disc Union, they sell tons of vinyl and CDs. Oh, and the Tower Records in Shibuya is incredible, best retail music/media store I've ever visited. Japan also has a great chain called Yodobashi Camera, basically Best Buy on tons of steroids, and unlike Best Buy, they still have an amazing amount of physical media for sale.
05-05-19, 12:33 AM
#7
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Re: HMV Hong Kong goes out of business
Originally Posted by orangerunner
I'm surprised Japan (and Hong Kong) would be a country where people still buy vinyl and CDs. With their major urban centres being so expensive and square footage so limited, I thought they would have been one of the first places in the world to drop physical media.
05-09-19, 03:52 PM
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Re: HMV Hong Kong goes out of business
Yeah, physical media is still king in Japan but it is finally starting to weaken. A local video rental store near my father-in-law's house over there finally closed just last year. It lasted far longer than I was expecting it to.
05-24-19, 11:12 AM
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Re: HMV Hong Kong goes out of business
Originally Posted by cultshock
That sucks. I've only visited Hong Kong once back in 1997 but I remember hitting a nice big HMV store there and shopping for LDs of HK films, it was a great store.
At least a lot of the HMV locations in Canada were bought out by Sunrise Records, who are also apparently saving a lot of the HMVs in the UK. Too bad about the HK locations though.
At least a lot of the HMV locations in Canada were bought out by Sunrise Records, who are also apparently saving a lot of the HMVs in the UK. Too bad about the HK locations though.
Soon, all that will be left to buy music (and movies) at are the independent record shops, which are full of clerks that have nasty attitudes towards people who don't have cool musical tastes as they do, or the (now) usual online outlets, which are not always practical (or even good) for an economy.
05-24-19, 01:31 PM
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Re: HMV Hong Kong goes out of business
Didn't that HMV on Yonge already close a few years ago? I believe a cannabis store opened up in that location last month (Tokyo Smoke, why the hell "Tokyo" I don't know. There is no weed culture in Japan and it is still highly illegal there, but I digress!). But yeah, I really miss that HMV location, along with the other great record stores that used to be on Yonge (Sam the Record Man, Tower, A&M, etc.), it's very sad that Yonge has almost completely lost it's cool factor, it's all homogenized and safe now.
05-24-19, 03:07 PM
#11
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Re: HMV Hong Kong goes out of business
Originally Posted by cultshock
Didn't that HMV on Yonge already close a few years ago? I believe a cannabis store opened up in that location last month (Tokyo Smoke, why the hell "Tokyo" I don't know. There is no weed culture in Japan and it is still highly illegal there, but I digress!). But yeah, I really miss that HMV location, along with the other great record stores that used to be on Yonge (Sam the Record Man, Tower, A&M, etc.), it's very sad that Yonge has almost completely lost it's cool factor, it's all homogenized and safe now.
