The Music Stops for HMV in Hong Kong
- CD, DVD shops will be wound up after 25 years in Hong Kong
- Retailer succumbs to ‘crushing force of the wheel of history’
This article is for subscribers only.
HMV Retail, part of what was once the U.K.’s biggest seller of music and movies, will wind up its stores in Hong Kong after a quarter century as the rise of streaming services from Spotify Technology SA and Netflix Inc. make CDs and DVDs obsolete.
The chain’s owner, HMV Digital China Group Ltd., said in a statement on Tuesday that it appointed liquidators for the unit. The decision came after the music-store chain, known for its logo of a cock-eared dog listening to a gramophone, defaulted on various payments and became insolvent, it said. Besides stagnant sales of CDs and DVDs, HMV blamed the popularity of Apple Inc.’s AirPods for sapping demand of the retailer’s best-selling earphones.