HMV Retail Ltd, formerly
HMV Group plc, is a British
entertainment retailing company operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was listed on the
London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the
FTSE Fledgling Index. The first HMV-branded store was opened by the
Gramophone Company on
Oxford Street in 1921, and the HMV name was also used for television and radio sets manufactured from the 1930s onwards. The retail side of the business began to expand in the 1960s, and in 1998 was divested from
EMI, the successor to the Gramophone Company, to form what would become HMV Group.