Michael P. Hogan
Analyst · CL King and Associates
Thanks, Mike. There's been a lot of discussion recently regarding the forecast for category growth in 2013 and '14, and I'd like to update you on the GameStop market model and our projections. Before I go on, I should mention that we have some slides. They are available if you go to investor.gamestop.com. There's 2 slides there which provide a little more detail and visual around some of these numbers we're going to present here in just a minute. Although NPD is a reliable source for tracking historical sales in physical gaming, it was clear to us several years ago that we needed a much broader picture and one that looks forward, as well as backward. For this reason, we built our own proprietary market model, which we have been using and refining for the last few years. The GameStop market model pulls together data from over 20 different sources. And using this, we produce what we believe is the most comprehensive overview of the categories that are relevant to our business, including both physical and digital, and including both historical and projected sales. Today, I want to zero in on the Console Games category and address GameStop's outlook for North America for 2013 through 2015. Console gaming includes Console Hardware, Console Software and Console Digital. The key inputs that are driving this forecast model include the timing, price points and success rates of new consoles, including software attach rates, trends on current consoles and historical growth curves for console launches and the number of new titles introduced each year and the relative success of those titles, including digital content and subscriptions. Considering all of these factors, our model projections for console gaming are as follows for North America: These numbers are shown on the first chart with the green and blue areas. Console Hardware and Software are shown in blue, and Console Digital is in green. In 2013, for hardware plus software, we project single-digit decline. That's the blue area. When you add Console Digital to that, the total growth will be closer to flat. We expect hardware will be negative for most of the year, reflecting the sunset of the console cycle, with strong growth in Q4, given the introduction of at least 1 and possibly 2 new consoles. Software will decline through the first half, offset somewhat in the second half, due to strong new title releases and new console software. In 2014, the model projects extremely strong growth. In this scenario, with 2 new console introductions in 2013, both would have a full year of positive impact on 2014, and Console Hardware plus Software growth, not including Digital, we would expect to be in the plus 20% to 30% range. We expect Console Digital growth to exceed that. In fact, 20% growth for Console Hardware and Software for 2014 is actually somewhat on the conservative side. In the first full year of the PS3, which was 2007, Sony hardware and software grew plus 31%. In the first full year of the Xbox 360, which was 2006, Microsoft hardware and software grew by 59%. The trend continues in 2015. The model projects a second consecutive year of positive growth for Hardware and Software in the range of plus 8% to 12%. This, too, is conservative compared to what we experienced in the prior console cycle. Console Digital should be in the high 20s, putting the total Console category at plus 10% to 15%. By 2015, Console Digital should be nearing $4 billion, much of which will be sold in stores. Assuming continued share increases, GameStop growth would exceed the category numbers. Let's look in detail at a few of the key inputs that drive the model projections. The most critical input is the timing of new console launches. Please note that while any new console introduction will have a positive impact on 2013 sales, the impact will come late in the year, it will be primarily hardware, and there may be an offsetting negative early in the year, as some consumers choose to hold off on the purchase of current generation consoles and wait for the new ones to come out. We would expect price reductions on current generation consoles, and that would drive higher unit sales, but at a lower price per unit. We know that Sony will introduce the PlayStation 4 globally in 2013, but we are still waiting to see what Microsoft's final plans are. We have scenarios with 1 console introduction, as well as with 2. Even a single launch in 2013 will drive double-digit console growth in 2014; and 2 launches, as noted above, would likely drive the console category north of 20% growth. The net of this is we expect new console introductions to have a slight positive impact on the category in 2013, but a significant positive impact for 2014 and 2015. It's worth noting that the impact of the Wii U launch was sufficient to drive GameStop U.S. hardware sales positive during the fourth quarter of 2012. This is due to 2 factors. The first is the category impact of the new console. And the second is GameStop market share, which on the Wii U hardware, is roughly 50% higher than it was for the original Wii launch in 2006 and '07. GameStop's share of Nintendo software has nearly doubled during that time frame. Thus, GameStop is benefiting disproportionately from even modestly successful category news. The second key factor is the relative success of the new consoles versus the prior generation. Our consumer research shows extremely strong consumer interest in the new consoles. Let's take a look at the second slide. This looks at purchase interest for a number of products among PowerUp Rewards members. In this case, purchase interest means do they plan to buy in the next year? As you can see, purchase interest for the new PlayStation 4 is very strong. In fact, across a wide range of products, including new smartphones, new tablets, laptops, et cetera, the PlayStation 4 is by far the top scoring item. This is further supported by the fact that nearly 900,000 members have already signed up for the PS4 First to Know List on PowerUp Rewards, as Paul and Tony noted earlier. We've chosen to be somewhat conservative in our model, due to the fact that there are still significant unknowns such as price point, game price, number of titles available the first year, et cetera. In addition, our consumer research indicates that up to 60% of consumers would be significantly less likely to buy a console that blocks trading, sharing or pre-owned games. So in summary, we anticipate the Console category will perform better than what we saw in 2012, but expect single-digit declines in 2013 as the cycle winds down. Even with relatively conservative assumptions around the success of new Sony and potentially Microsoft consoles, the Console category should deliver very strong growth of plus 20% to 30% in 2014, followed by strong growth, again, in 2015. And GameStop stores will additionally benefit from increased sales of Console Digital in our stores. The second topic I want to cover today is a brief update on PowerUp Rewards. PowerUp Rewards continues to grow, and recently passed the 23 million member mark. For full year 2012, PowerUp represented roughly 70% of all GameStop U.S. sales, an increase of 10 points over 2011. The PowerUp continues to attract the heaviest spenders in the category, with an average annual spend of $366, which is more than 3x the category average. Our database of member game libraries continues to grow, and we now have an accurate record of over 425 million products across the membership base. We are leveraging this data to drive both current and new businesses in a number of ways. We've recently updated the libraries to include data on new categories. In addition to consoles and games, we have added data on tablets, smartphones, downloadable content and points cards. PowerUp members benefit directly from this rich data with relevant product offers, awareness of new games or new categories and specific trade-in values on items that they own. In 2012, PowerUp member spend significantly outperformed the category, the industry and the rest of GameStop. As you know, according to NPD, total physical category sales declined by 22% for full year 2012. In comparison, PowerUp member spend grew plus 4% over this same time period. There are many reasons for this. We have seen considerable success in our ability to drive increased spend and share of wallet among PowerUp members through better communication, targeted offers, unique value and exclusive products and promotions. A good example of this is our marketing Go Big title launch promotions. We have the ability to communicate directly with our members well in advance of a new title launch, targeting the members most likely to want that specific title, highlighting the gameplay and the GameStop and PowerUp exclusives. This has helped to drive the share gains we have seen on software, which totaled 360 basis points for full year 2012. The second example is the unique value PowerUp provides to our Pro members. The program, as you know, costs $14.99 per year. We found that members were getting far more value than they realized. In fact, the average Pro member realizes over $40 in value per year. This is the actual value realized by the member, not just offers presented. We recently rolled out a program to show each member the value they have personally received, and we are seeing a significant increase in renewal rates as a result. Lastly, we are seeing a lot of success in leveraging PowerUp to cost-effectively expand into new growth categories such as DLC and recommerce. In 2012, PowerUp represented in the U.S. nearly 70% of DLC sales and over 60% of recommerce sales. We continue to find more ways in which to leverage PowerUp to drive our strategic growth businesses. I will now turn it back over to Paul.