COMPUTER GAME retailer GameStop, which has 58 shops in the Republic, Northern Ireland and Britain, generated a pretax profit of €3.6 million on revenues of €75.7 million last year.
In the 12 months to February 2nd last, GameStop Group Limited reduced its retained losses to €2.8 million from €6.8 million at the beginning of February 2007.
The accounts just filed at the Companies Office show how the retailer turned around a pretax loss of €2.4 million for the previous 12 months.
In a report attached to the accounts the directors say the group "grew strongly in the last financial year and exceeded all sales and profitability targets".
They point to the launch of Sony's PlayStation 3 games console, continued buoyancy of Microsoft's Xbox 360 and "unprecedented demand" for Nintendo's Wii and DS products as contributing to this.
Revenues were up €35.4 million on the previous financial year.
Nine GameStop shops were opened during the year in question.
Last week it opened its 11th Dublin store, bringing its total to 58.
The accounts show that it had an average of 288 employees, up from 182 the previous year, and spent €6.5 million on wages and other employment costs.
Texas-based GameStop Corporation, the biggest video game retailer in the US, is the ultimate parent of the Irish holding company with a 51 per cent shareholding.
In 2003 it paid $3.1 million for a controlling interest in Gamesworld which at the time had 11 shops and a distribution business which supplied other retailers.
The founding partners of Gamesworld, Kevin Neary, Michael Finucane and Paul Hennessy, still work for GameStop as managing director, commercial director and financial director respectively.
They founded the company in 1994 with a IR£9,500 bank overdraft.
