Tony D. Bartel
Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets
Thanks, Ron, and good morning, everyone. Today, I'm going to provide you with color on the upcoming console and title launches, and update you on our digital and mobile second quarter performance and full year forecast. We are optimistic and ready for the upcoming console launches and the strong software lineup. The software slate is as strong as it has been in years and the launch of the new consoles is seeing strong consumer demand. Key launch titles in Q3 are Electronic Arts Madden 25, FIFA 14, and Battlefield 4. Disney's Infinity, which is off to a very strong start exceeding our expectations, Take-Two's Grand Theft Auto 5, Activision's Skylanders SWAP Force, Nintendo's Pokémon X and Y, Warner's Batman: Arkham Origins, and Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed: Black Flag. Our software market share grew 290 basis points during Q2, and we are at record highs on both PS3 and Xbox 360 software share. So we're launching these strong new titles at our peak. Our deep and long-standing relationships with the publishers allows us to offer intriguing and unique exclusive digital and physical content with each launch. This, along with the close customer relationships that we have with our 31 million PowerUp Reward members and through our knowledgeable associates, provides us with the ability to maximize physical, digital and ancillary revenue at the time of launch. For instance, in the recent Disney Infinity launch, we offered customers the opportunity to preorder and purchase over $400 worth of characters in a single transaction. Similarly, on the upcoming launch of Grand Theft Auto V, we are the only U.S. retailer to sell the exclusive $150 collector's edition. Our buy-sell-trade model continues to make us the most affordable place to buy games, systems, digital content, consumer electronics and accessories. Along with having trade-in deals on both new consoles, we now have 2 ways for PowerUp Reward members to buy new games for $9.99, either by trading in 2 recent current generation games or by trading up to the Xbox One version of a recently launched game. We will continue to work with our publishing partners to create unique ways to drive value that can only be found at GameStop. For the console launches, our allocations from both Microsoft and Sony are much stronger than last launch. While we cannot disclose actual launch quantities for competitive reasons, we expect a significant increase in launch day quantities versus the last console launch. To put the launch efforts into perspective, we have increased our launch period supply chain capacity by 60% through the use of contracted distribution centers. By utilizing our reservation information and PowerUp Rewards first to know list, we will be able to pinpoint these unprecedented launch quantities to the right locations and to drive logistic savings as well. After completing our reservation programs for both consoles, we still have 1.5 million of PowerUp Reward customers on the Sony first to know list, and 700,000 PowerUp Reward customers on the Microsoft first to know list. Next week, all 4,400 of our U.S. store managers will have hands-on training on all of the new games and on the new consoles. So we will continue to be the most knowledgeable source for buying a new console and related games and accessories. Also we will have over 4,000 of our customers attend our GameStop Expo in Las Vegas next week, where they too will receive hands-on experience with some of the new games and the 2 new consoles. Turning to mobile. Our business continues its strong performance, generating $55 million of global revenue, more than doubling over quarter 2 last year. Our margin on our mobile business was 29% in the second quarter. We are now accepting over 600 SKUs for trade in our stores and these expanded SKUs are improving our inventory levels. Also we recently launched the new Nexus 7 tablet and our exclusive Sophix 8-inch tablet, and both are seeing strong demand. We will also be adding the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 line later this month. We fully expect our mobile sales to benefit from the large increase in traffic that we expect in our stores during the third and fourth quarter, and so we are reconfirming our full year growth targets of between 30% to 40% over 2012. Digital revenue increased 18% during the quarter, as expected, with the U.S. Digital business growing 12%, and the international Digital business growing 43%. International growth was driven by the rollout of Digital Game Informer, Steam Wallet and DLC into additional markets. By segment, console digital grew 5%, outpacing physical software growth by 25 points during the quarter, and PC digital grew 38%, as we rolled over the successful launch of Minecraft in the second quarter of 2012. As nearly every major launch title during the back half of the year is launching with DLC, we expect to continue to outpace the significant software growth that we'll see in the back half of the year, and we are reconfirming our full year guidance of 25% to 35%. Kongregate continued its impressive growth streak with 50% growth. In addition, they launched their first 2 mobile games, Pirate and Sheep Happens on the iOS platform, and have many more games in their publishing pipeline as they leverage their $10 million development fund. Steam Wallet sales continued their strong trajectory, tripling globally during the quarter as we have now completed our global rollout of this service. Even in the U.S., Steam Wallet revenues nearly doubled over last year's second quarter. And Game Informer is the largest digital magazine in the world with 3.3 million subscribers. Based on our forecast, we will have a combined mobile and digital business that exceeds $1 billion on a non-GAAP basis in 2013. I would like to remind you that these are businesses that we were not in 3 years ago. In short, we are ready and excited for the software, digital, mobile and console launches that lay in front of that -- in front of us. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike Mauler.