Fewer companies accounting for increasing amount of specialty retailer's new product purchases; the "Big Three," EA, and Activision now make up 75 percent of chain's business.

To fill its stores with new gaming software, hardware, and accessories, GameStop does business with roughly 75 companies worldwide. That number of business partners has remained steady for years, but the company has seen a dramatic shift in how much business it does with which partners.

GameStop has done its part in keeping Nintendo's coffers full in recent years.

In its annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission today, GameStop broke down some of the numbers on its vendor relationships, revealing that a single company, Nintendo, was responsible for 23 percent of the retailer's new product purchases for its fiscal 2009 (the year ended January 31, 2010). That's down from a peak of 25 percent the previous fiscal year.

Additionally, the top five companies GameStop buys from--Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, and Activision, in that order--combined to account for 75 percent of its new product purchases during its fiscal 2009. Sony claimed 17 percent of the company's business for the year, with Microsoft and EA each grabbing 12 percent. Activision accounted for 11 percent of GameStop's product purchases, reaching double-digit percentages with the retailer for the first time.

The top 10 companies GameStop does business with accounted for roughly 85 percent of its new product purchases in fiscal 2009. That's up from 80 percent in fiscal 2008 and fiscal 2007. In fiscal 2006, the retail chain's top 10 business partners only combined for 65 percent of its new product purchases, with Microsoft taking the single largest share with 14 percent.

 

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6254420.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;4

Numbers make sense. Nintendo sells the most software and hardware. Sony doesn't have the hardware sales of Microsoft in North America [EDIT: Actually maybe not. Forgot about the PSP and PS2 for a moment there. lol] but they sold more software overall (precisely because Sony had more first-party software to sell in 2009. And now in 2010 as well). And EA and Activision are the top 2 third-party publishers revenue wise.

Not surprised. Although, they did move all the Wii and DS stuff to the back of the store here. Freaking annoying trying to walk threw people in our little store.

It's funny how Nintendo changed the industry. 5 years ago when I went to Gamestop, it use to be nothing but teen boys and young men buying games. Now that the Wii is here, I see kids, teen girls and parents buying games every time I go to Gamestop.

More evidence of industry consolidation.

you must have been living under a rock, or just incredibly unlucky because kids and teen girls have always been buying video games.. ever since playstation. When gaming went from being a NERD thing, to a normal hobby.

And they struggle to adequately place decent software on the shelves... That number could probably be up another 2 - 4% if third parties and gamestop got their wii advertising game together

Kids in particular were buying games way before 1995, leo....

yes, but saying "girls and kids didn't buy video games before wii" makes no sense, and my comment was meant to say "people who bought video games before playstation, were labeled as nerds, and social rejects" Which was true, games were always meant for kids until playstation, which again is true.

"Ever since playstation" would be 1995. Kids buying games precedes the Playstation.