The sales of the Swedish clothing retailer Hennes & Mauritz AB (H&M) developed unexpectedly weakly in the third quarter of the 2021/22 financial year. This emerges from an interim report published by the parent company of brands such as H&M, Cos, Monki, Weekday, & Other Stories and Arket on Thursday.
According to this, the revenues in the months of June to August amounted to almost 57.5 billion Swedish crowns (5.4 billion euros). Compared to the same quarter of the previous year, they increased by only three percent. In the respective local currencies, sales even fell by four percent. Analysts had expected a much better development in advance.
After all, the group was able to see an upward trend: After a “weak start”, sales development “gradually improved” over the course of the quarter, the company announced. The start of the autumn season went “better than last year”.
Overall, however, growth in the most recent quarter was significantly lower than in the previous months. In the second quarter, Hennes & Mauritz had achieved a sales increase of 17 percent (currency-adjusted +12 percent). In the first half of the year as a whole, sales were even 20 percent (currency-adjusted +15 percent) above the level of the same period of the previous year, in which, however, the restrictions in force at the time due to the Covid 19 pandemic had impacted business in some important markets.
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