The Swedish-based fast-fashion giant continues to take the U.S. by storm and capturing the attention of youth culture markets. As revealed in our Fall Youth Culture Study 2013, H&M is higher on the radar than ever before although not quite in the top upper echelons of favorite brands/retailers among 13-25-year-olds, but knowing what’s happening with this steady giant illustrates important trends in the future.
First, their 3rd quarter financials are in and the company saw a 22% profit increase. H&M also reported an extremely successful launch of its online store now available in American markets. They also launched their 3,000 store—this one in Chengdu, China. Like many other retailers looking for growing new markets, H&M is seeking out expansion across China and tapping into this marketplace.
In addition, today, September 26, 2013, they announced their 9-monthes report with a sales increase of 8%. Here are comments by CEO Karl-Johan Persson:
“The third quarter has been very good as regards both sales and profits. Profits after financial items increased by nearly SEK 1 billion. Our well received summer collections have resulted in strong sales development in the quarter, particularly in Asia but also in a number of European markets. We have also seen the very successful launch of our online store in the US in August and can see that our offering stands up well in the world’s largest online market. Our expansion is strong. It is not long since we opened our 2,000th store in 2010, and this September – only three years later – we opened our store number 3,000 in Chengdu, one of China’s major cities. China is the country where our expansion is strongest, but we are also expanding in other exciting regions.
We have opened 215 new stores so far this year and have had successful openings in four new H&M countries: Chile, Lithuania, Serbia and Estonia. In October this year we will open in another country in Southeast Asia – in Indonesia via franchise – and in the first half of 2014 we will open our first store in Melbourne, Australia. In 2015 we plan to open in South Africa. We are also continuing to work on our other brands as well as on our global roll-out of online shopping with the aim of launching our online store in more markets during 2014. Expansion continues for our other brands, especially COS and & Other Stories, which continue to do well and will expand even more rapidly next year.”
