Games Workshop in 40% profit rise shocker!

I was going to do a quick overview of what I think of some of the upcoming Vampire rumors as the new toys are up for pre-order tomorrow but this has caught my attention and I thought it would be nice to write about it. So it may come as a shock to the internet gaming community considering the general negativity towards Games Workshop since they raised prices last year, introduced Finecast and brought out Dreadfleet. Even with all these "negative" changes, GW have announced a 40% rise in profits. Here's a link to an article on Thisislondon.co.uk but I have copied it below for those too lazy to click (and it makes it easier to reference when I say what I think).

"Games Workshop, the maker of the Warhammer battle games, has demonstrated the benefit of its global strategy by delivering a 40 per cent leap in half-year pre-tax profits.

The Nottingham-based manufacturer and retailer's shares surged by almost 9 per cent to their highest level since the spring of 2005.

The maker of Citadel Miniature soldiers hailed a growth across all its channels and territories, including the UK, North America and Asia, although its revenues fell in Australia and continental Europe.

Games Workshop, which also has eponymous shops, grew its pre-tax profits by two-fifths to £9.5 million for the six months to 28 November, on revenues up by 5 per cent to £62.7 million.

The group generates more than 70 per cent of its sales outside the UK, and has global appeal amongst hobbyists, who collect, build and paint its miniatures and play war games with them.

Mark Wells, chief executive of Games Workshop, said: "An encouraging first-half performance in which we have delivered growth in sales, profit and return on capital from our core business. Good progress has been made on our strategic initiatives."

The group has more than 130 Games Workshop stores in the UK, Republic of Ireland, Scandinavia and Benelux regions.

The group's results also benefited from a large royalty payment it received from the games manufacturer THQ after the launch of its Space Marine computer game.

Shares in Games Workshop jumped by 40p, or 8.9 per cent, to 490p, valuing the group at £154.7 million."

So firstly this is good news, especially considering the state of the world economy at the moment and GW are very much a niche hobby. It's also interesting to see that while the internet gaming community have been very negative about somethings GW have done, it doesn't seem to have had a big impact on things and that GW do actually seem to know what they are doing. From a customer point of view, I'm hoping that this will either lead to Games Workshop providing some stability with their prices and we start to see some of this profit invested into new ranges or re-releases of cool old games (like Blood Bowl!!!).