Citing strong sales of its spring collection, the Swedish retail group H&M announced it had made a pre-tax profit of USD 1.1bn in the second quarter of 2014. The company announcement singled out its latest store opening in Australia and French on-line sales as particular bright spots ove rthe past three months.
”We have had a good second quarter with a strong increase in both sales and profits and increased market share. Well-received collections and continued strong expansion led to a sales increase of 20 percent in SEK and 16 percent in local currencies. The strong sales development together with good cost control contributed to an increase in operating profits of 26 percent,” said CEO Karl-Johan Persson.
The company reported that costs in comparable stores were unchanged in absolute terms compared to QII 2013 but that they’d fallen as a proportion of sales. “The increase in selling and administration expenses of 16 percent in SEK compared to the second quarter last year is mainly due to the expansion,” wrote the company in a statement “and the long-term investments within IT and online but also to the broadening of the product range and the establishment of the new fashion brand & Other Stories. In local currencies, the increase was 13 percent.”
