Fashion retailer H&M announced today that it will be shutting down more stores after it experienced its biggest drop in quarterly sales in at least a decade.
Although group sales rose by 4% over the year, fourth quarter sales shrank by 4% year-on-year, to 50.4bn kronor ($6bn), as fewer customers visited its stores. This was far below the retailer’s expectations. Shares in H&M have now hit their lowest level in eight years.
H&M plans to adapt to changes in the market by closing more stores and selling the brand through Chinese online platform Tmall. It aims to integrate its physical and digital stores more, and will give more details on their strategy changes at a meeting with investors on February 14.
The company said:
“The quarter was weak for the H&M brand’s physical stores, which were negatively affected by a continued challenging market situation with reduced footfall to stores due to the ongoing shift in the industry[…] In addition, there have been imbalances in parts of the H&M brand’s assortment composition.”
The company’s rival, Inditex, the owner of high street brand Zara, as well as Massimo Dutti, Bershka and Pull&Bear, has continually outperformed H&M, as it expands more into e-commerce. However, this week, the Spanish giant also reported a slowdown in sales in its third quarter but said sales improved again in November given the colder weather.
The post H&M to Shut Stores as Quarterly Results Plunge appeared first on The Market Mogul.
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