The recent strong sales growth of fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) dropped sharply in September with the strangely warm weather that made the sales of cold-weather clothes not that much. This is what the company said in its report on Tuesday for the quarterly profits together with next month’s expectations.
According to the Swedish company, the sales actually only increased by 7% for 23 days straight in September as opposed to the almost 20% boost in August. This record alone puts the month of September on the list of the slowest month sales for the year 2014.
The months of March to August went really strong for the sales growth of the company averaging 16%.
H&M’s hometown (Stockholm) experienced an unusually warm weather in September that only a few stores sold sweaters, gloves, scarves, jackets and other cold-weather clothes.
The Chief Executive of H&M, Karl-Johan Persson said in a meeting that the reason why September sales growth are very slow is because some products didn’t sell and this is all because of the warm weather.
H&M is the second largest fashion retailer and its performance in the past few months have helped its shares to do really great and outdo the sales of Inditex which is its closest rival.
The company is planning to open 375 stores this year, but made it clear that the launch in the sub-continent’s would not happen until the spring of 2015. There are no clarifications though as to why the company decided to move the planned launch for this autumn to spring of next year.
The group will have the Philippines as its newest market in October and H&M will open a number of shops in 2015 in Macau, Taiwan, South Africa and Peru.
According to H&M, the Italy and Spain online site launched in August has made a really good start as well as the one in China this month.
