Our favorite games maker expect pre-tax profits to be about 50% higher than market analyst expectations.
This is partly because market analysts are probably rubbish and know little more than the rest of us. The other main reason is GW's cost cutting or as they like to put it...“Sales have held up well but it’s largely the way we run the business – we’ve done a better job of increasing the profitability of the product and keeping a tight control on overheads.”
Anyway, it's good news because it means our hobby has life and a future. From a gamers point of view we don't need sky rocketing growth, a bit of steady growth is good to attract new gamers and continued investment but really we just need it to be sustainable and give a reasonable return so that nobody rocks our gaming boat :)
For a short while, a couple of years back, there were some worries after the precipitous fall in sales and soaring costs following the success of the LOTR game (it was boom time for GW during the LoTR movies and they bought too many shops).
Interestingly, the Financial Times say that GW has opened 10 stores with just a single staff member !
Here's the FT article, copy it into your browser
ft.com/cms/s/0/afb932a0-fade-11de-94d8-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1
Anyway, congrats to GW and all us Warhammerers for supporting the hobby. Keep up the good work and let's hope GW keep pumping out excellent updates - we've been spoilt over the past few years.
Right, I'm off to buy some shares.... or maybe I should keep my crowns for the Beastmen ?!