The sales development at the Swedish clothing group Hennes & Mauritz AB (H&M) also fell short of market expectations in the third quarter of the 2022/23 financial year.
According to preliminary figures, sales in the second period from June to August reached almost 60.9 billion Swedish crowns (5.1 billion euros), said the parent company of brands such as H&M, Cos, Monki, Weekday, & Other Stories and Arket on Friday with. This corresponded to an increase of just six percent compared to the same quarter of the previous year. In the respective local currencies, revenues remained almost unchanged.
The group pointed out that the withdrawal from some markets as a result of the Russian attack on Ukraine had slowed growth. Adjusted for sales contributions from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, quarterly sales increased by eight percent, the clothing supplier explained.
Hennes & Mauritz also emphasized that the efforts to increase the operating margin to ten percent in the coming financial year were “moving in the right direction”. In the past quarter, the focus was on profitability and inventories, the group explained. The full interim report for the first nine months of the current financial year is scheduled to be published on September 27th.