It's not a great time to be in the music business for anyone—especially if you insist on selling discs at or above list price. Trans World, the parent company of everyone's favorite overpriced music retailer FYE, posted nearly 12 million dollars in losses for the first quarter, and the news could have been much worse for our blue-aproned friends. Trans World closed a distribution center to cover three million in losses in a quarter which saw the retailer lose 6% in last year's sales. The news isn't all bad, however: video games are up 11% and accessories are up 17%. Compact discs, however, were down 23%. Then again, there's that Coldplay disc to save us all, right? Right? [
Billboard]
Idolator
Trans World, the owner of last-music-chain-standing FYE, has announced its fourth-quarter results for 2007, and they aren't pretty: "For the fourth quarter, total sales decreased 23% to $451.5 million compared to $586.7 million in 2006. Comparable store sales for the quarter decreased 12%. .... For fiscal year 2007, total sales decreased 14% to $1.266 billion compared to $1.471 billion in 2006. Comparable store sales for fiscal year 2007 decreased 8%." Sure, both the fourth quarter of 2007 and the year as a whole had one less week than their counterparts, but that doesn't really make up all of that shortfall. [
