{"id":30405,"date":"2013-01-23T10:20:09","date_gmt":"2013-01-23T08:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=30405"},"modified":"2013-01-23T10:42:56","modified_gmt":"2013-01-23T08:42:56","slug":"musica-hit-by-store-closures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/30405\/musica-hit-by-store-closures\/","title":{"rendered":"Musica hit by store closures"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clicks Group<\/a> says that its music and entertainment retailer, Musica<\/a>, has been impacted by the closure of several stores.<\/p>\n

In a trading statement for the 18 weeks to 30 December 2012, Clicks said that it increased sales by 11.7% to R5.97 billion, noting that consumer spending remains muted.<\/p>\n

And, while Musica increased same stores sales by 8.2%, \u201cturnover was impacted by the closure of a further seven stores during the period and total sales increased by 1.0%,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Clicks chief executive David Kneale<\/a> said: “The trend of consumers delaying their purchases until closer to Christmas continued while consumers were increasingly value conscious this festive season.”<\/p>\n

The arrival of several music download services in South Africa in recent months, led by Apple<\/a>\u2019s iTunes Store has thrown into question the longevity of music retailers.<\/p>\n

In the UK, high street music and entertainment group HMV,\u00a0recently went into administration citing a consumer shift toward online shopping and digital downloads.<\/p>\n

In a recent interview with BusinessTech, the group said that it is optimistic that the arrival of\u00a0iTunes<\/a>\u00a0in South Africa will complement its offering and\u00a0stimulate the local music industry.<\/p>\n

Moenieba Abrahams<\/a>, Musica\u2019s marketing & HR manage said that the official launch of iTunes in the country fitted in with the group\u2019s expansion into entertainment-related products such as headphones, portable speakers, docking stations, etc.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, since we\u2019re the largest stockist of headphones in this country, our brand will complement iTunes as more customers will be inspired to accessorise their music systems,\u201d the marketing lead said.<\/p>\n

Abrahams stated that\u00a0CD sales were likely to increase \u201cas they will benefit from additional exposure through iTunes, combined with the continuing demand for the physical format that still exists in this country\u201d.<\/p>\n

More on Musica on digital music<\/h3>\n

Musica bullish despite iTunes arrival<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Look & Listen more than brick and mortar: CEO<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

What iTunes means for SA\u2019s brick and mortar<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

iTunes launches in SA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Rara music service in SA \u2013 special R6.99 pricing<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Flat-rated music streaming service launched in SA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Flat-rated data packages for streaming music<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Simfy music streaming coming for SA: all the details<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clicks Group says that its music and entertainment retailer, Musica, has been impacted by the closure of several stores.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":27814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[5049,3828,26,5050,3348,4782],"class_list":["post-30405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-apple-itunes","tag-clicks-group","tag-headline","tag-hmv","tag-itunes","tag-musica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30405"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30412,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30405\/revisions\/30412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}