Fanatical, an online games retail platform which operates out of the UK, has reported an explosive year-on-year sales increase of 148 per cent for December 2018.
Transactions for the month of December almost doubled, up 93 per cent year-on-year. In the same period new customers leapt by 130 per cent and average order value grew by 28 per cent.
December’s sales success helped Fanatical to grow its fourth quarter revenue by 74 per cent year-on-year. Standout successes in Q4 included Fanatical’s Black Friday and Winter Sale events, and the Kingslayer Bundle, a Fanatical exclusive.
The overall UK digital games market saw a revenue increase of 12.5 per cent for the calendar year 2018, according to The Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA).
Focus Multimedia Limited launched Fanatical in 2012. It currently offers a range of over 5,800 PC and Mac digital products, all officially licensed from a growing roster of 900 game publishers and developers.
“The fourth quarter has seen an exceptional performance across Black Friday and the Christmas period,” said Craig Johnson, Managing Director of Focus Multimedia. “We are now actively recruiting additional staff at our UK HQ to further accelerate our scale and growth. We’re thrilled that on the back of these strong results, 2019 is shaping up to be our most successful year ever.”
The ERA revealed that gaming accounted for more than half of the UK’s total entertainment market for the first-time last year. Of the £3.86bn generated by the UK video game market in 2018, £3.09bn (80 per cent) was from digital and £770m (20 per cent) from physical sales.
With customers in 200 countries, Fanatical is now accelerating its international expansion programme. Support has been added for 15 additional languages, allowing customers to shop for their favourite games quickly and easily. These include Chinese (Simplified & Traditional), German, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, French, Polish, Korean, Italian, Dutch, Hungarian, Turkish and Swedish.
“Fanatical now delivers a best in class customer experience by allowing gamers to browse and buy in their native language,” said Grant Hughes, PR & Partnerships Manager at Fanatical. “We are already working closely with new partners in new territories, as we bring our market-leading deals and exclusive games bundles to a wider international audience.”
