Sales in local currencies registered 4 per cent growth in the first quarter, while online growth continued to be strong and profitable for all the brands within the group. COS, & Other Stories, Monki, Weekday and H&M Home continued to develop very well.
The group’s profit after financial items amounted to SEK 3,212 million, while its profit after tax amounted to SEK 2,457 million, corresponding to SEK 1.48 per share. Profits in the quarter were negatively affected by lower sales growth than planned as well as higher mark-downs.
Commenting on the group’s performance, H&M CEO Karl-Johan Persson said, “For fashion retail in general, market conditions were very tough in many of our large markets in central and southern Europe and in the US, and this was reflected in our sales. In other markets, such as Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries, Eastern Europe, Turkey, Russia, China and Japan our sales developed well and we continued to take market share. Sales at COS, & Other Stories, Monki, Weekday and H&M Home continued to develop very well both in stores and online, as did H&M’s online sales.”
“We have seven brands today – H&M, COS, & Other Stories, Monki, Weekday, Cheap Monday and H&M Home – and soon it will be time for our next exciting launch, Arket. H&M remains our largest brand with a presence in 65 markets. This means a wide geographical spread involving a mix of both established and new markets with significant competition locally, globally and digitally. Retail is going through a challenging period of change in which customers’ shopping behaviour and expectations are changing at a fast pace as a result of growing digitalisation. This is an accelerating development which also brings great opportunities,” said Persson.
“To meet the rapid change that is going on in fashion retail we need to be even faster and more flexible in our work processes, for example as regards buying and allocation of our assortment. We are therefore investing significantly in our supply chain, such as in new logistics solutions with greater levels of automation, but also in optimising our lead times. In the changes we are making, advanced analytics will provide important support for decision making,” he added.
This year, H&M will expand to five new physical store markets—Kazakhstan, Colombia, Iceland, Vietnam and Georgia. In addition, H&M plans to continue its online roll-out into six new markets: Turkey, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Malaysia which are planned to open during the first half of 2017. It will launch Arket as a new brand in early autumn 2017. Also, H&M Home will open its first standalone stores in 2018. (RKS)
Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India