Investors were expecting strong numbers from H&M Hennes & Mauritz Ab (OMX: HM B) but got even more than they were hoping. Comparable sales during the first half-year were up by 3 percent. In Swedish kronor, sales excluding VAT were around 59.5 billion, an increase of 14%. In the second the numbers were more of the same, with the 31.7 billion total sales number excluding value added tax being a 15% improvement while comparable unit sales were up by 2%.
But these numbers were already known for investors, since the company announces monthly sales numbers. What was most positive was that the margins kept stable, with gross margin at 61.7% and operating margin up to 17.5% from 17.3%. This translates to six month gross profit of 35 billion, operating profit of 10.4 billion and profit after taxes of just under 8 billion for earnings per share of 4.81 SEK. Second quarter profit was 5.2 billion, up strongly from 4.25 billion a year ago.
The growth plans are on track with five new markets in 2012 being Bulgaria, Mexico, Latvia, Malaysia and Thailand. Online sales in the USA will be initiated in the autumn and store contracts are in place for 2013 in Estonia (as announced by Citycon (OMXH: CTY1S) today) and Indonesia. CEO Karl-Johan Persson called current fashion retail market ”challenging” so the fact that H&M managed to grow market share and maintain good financial performance was especially gratifying.
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