GameStop to close as many as 200 more stores in 2019

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) – GameStop has announced it will close as many as 200 stores before the end of this year after another quarter of sharply declining sales, the company said.

In a statement, the company’s chief financial officer Jim Bell attributed the drop in sales to trends “consistent with what we have historically observed towards the end of a hardware cycle.”

Bell said there have been 195 store closures since last year.

For the quarter ending in March, GameStop reported a 13.3 sales decline and the company’s stock price plunged 40% in one day.

The company’s most recent annual report listed 5,830 locations worldwide, with more than 4,000 of them in the United States and Canada. ( GameStop has about 18 stores in the Indianapolis area.)

Exactly how many stores could close in the U.S. was not disclosed.

GameStop has previously said it was struggling with selling physical video games and consoles in brick-and-mortar stores during a time when people are downloading and streaming games from the internet.