An general exterior view of the retail store of H&M fashion in Oxford Circus on January 09, 2025 in London, England.
John Keeble | Getty Images News | Getty images
Actions of H&M Fell by more than 5% on Thursday after the second world retailer missed sales forecasts in the fourth quarter.
The sales of the Swedish fashion giant reached 62.19 billion Swedish krona in the last three months of the year, below 63.48 billion forecasts in a reuters survey, but up 3% in Local currencies.
The company awarded the deficit in parties in part to the subsequent occurrence of Black Friday, but said that sales had shot in December and January, in a positive start for the new exercise.
On the whole, in 2024, sales increased by 1% in local currencies to reach 234.58 billion Swedish Krona, trained mainly by women’s clothing, sportswear and online group segments.
However, the operating profit of a full year came a little better than expected. H&M displayed an operating profit of 17.3 billion Swedish Krona ($ 1.57 billion) for 2024, against 17.2 billion Swedish Krona provided by analysts in an LSEG survey.
The fourth quarter operating profit took place at 4.6 billion Swedish Krona against 4.2 billion Swedish analysts from Krona.
Actions have slightly losses to exchange 3.25% by 9:18 am London time.
H&M.
“The benefits of sales and exploitation increased in the fourth quarter motivated by solid online sales, well -received female fashion collections and effective cost control. “Said CEO Daniel Ervér in a press release accompanying the results.
For the future, Ervér said that he expected pressure on consumers to get longer in 2025, and added that the company was well placed to deal with any “external” impact in trade international.
“Although the pursuit of macroeconomic conditions and geopolitical uncertainty can have an impact on consumer feeling in 2025, we see positive signs such as inflation and lowered interest rates,” he declared.
“Our diversified supply chain gives us the flexibility necessary to mitigate the negative external impact on different markets. The global fashion market. “”
H&M has difficulty competing with the rival belonging to Inditex Zara, as well as retailers at a lower cost such as the fast fashion giant based on Chinese.
In September, the company abandoned its objective of margin of profit for 2024, higher costs and the increase in competition reached the operating profit in the third quarter.
The results mark the last test for CEO Erverr, which was appointed to the January 2024 post to accelerate the group turnaround.
Speaking during a media presentation shortly after the statement of the results on Thursday, Ervér said that the company was aimed at the growth of long -term sales of at least 10% per year, an operating margin greater than 10% and a 56% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 against 2019 levels.
“I am satisfied with the first progress, but I think there is an additional potential for us,” he added.
