Rent costs and the steep retail downturn have forced HMV Hong Kong to close its store in Central.
However, a new shop is scheduled to open in September, just a block away from where the two-storey store was situated for five years in the Entertainment Building on Queen’s Road Central. The move is expected to save the music and DVD retailer about HK$250,000 (US$32,000) in rent each month.
The store was HMV’s second-largest outlet in the city, with the new shop being about 25 per cent smaller, in the basement of Manning House, Central.
When the British retailer HMV, founded in 1922, went into administration in January 2013, Aid Partners bought it and re-established it in Hong Kong and Singapore. An 81.63 per cent stake was sold to filmmaker China 3D Digital for HK$408 million in March. Aid is the single largest shareholder of the new owner.
Meanwhile, HMV is expected to expand into mainland China, initially into Shenzhen.
In Singapore, the last surviving HMV store closed in September after deciding not to renew its lease in the Marina Square shopping mall. It was also the victim of high retail rents, as well as the digital age.