| H&M posts an unexpected 3 % drop in sales in October |
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16/11/2009 12:55 (817 Day 17:30 minutes ago) | |||||
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The FINANCIAL -- Swedish fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz AB posted an unexpected 3 percent drop in store sales in October.
The world's third-largest fashion chain by revenue behind U.S.-based Gap Inc. and Spain's Inditex SA said October same-store sales fell 3%, continuing the run of sales declines for a sixth month, The Wall Street Journal reported. Analysts had expected a 3.3% rise in sales from stores open at least a year.
Total sales were up 7 percent, but analysts polled by Reuters had expected a 5.1 percent rise in sales in established stores and a 14.9 percent rise in total sales, Reuters informs. "The continued recession affected sales differently across H&M's markets," the company said on Monday.
"Sales in Scandinavia, Central Europe and Asia were very satisfactory, while most other markets, primarily France, Spain and the U.S., had a continued weak sales development," according to the same source. "It was a weak development in October, disappointing," said Soren Lontoft Hansen, analyst at Sydbank.
In Germany, H&M's largest market, clothing sales grew 12% in October, according to industry journal Textilwirtschaft, CNN Money reported. H&M's total sales, which include sales in new stores, rose 7%, missing forecasts for a 13% rise. H&M had 1,925 stores at the end of October compared with 1,702 stores a year earlier.
H&M reports only percentage changes for its monthly sales, not actual revenue, according to the same source. H&M shares closed Friday at SEK436. Since the start of the year they have risen 43%, outperforming a 34% gain for the OMX index of the 40 biggest Nordic Companies.
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