The Swedish clothing giant Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) announced Wednesday that its profit for the second quarter was higher than expected and the reason was the fast development of online stores.
H&M reported a profit of 7,643 million Swedish krones (about 1,092 million U.S. dollars) for the second quarter in the company's fractured fiscal year, compared with a profit of 6,125 million Swedish krones (about 875 million U.S. dollars) a year earlier.
Analysts had expected a profit of 7,559 million Swedish krones (about 1,080 million U.S. dollars) for the second quarter, said the company in a press release.
"We have had a good second quarter with a strong increase in both sales and profits and increased market share. Well-received collections and continued strong expansion led to a sales increase of 20 percent in Swedish krones and 16 percent in local currencies," said Karl-Johan Persson, CEO of the company.
The strong sales development together with good cost control contributed to an increase in operating profits of 26 percent," he added.
He added that H&M was seeing some of our long-term investments starting to generate revenues and online store in the US and in France.
However, the company will continue with our long-term investments in order to build an even stronger brand and to continue with multi-channel strategy he said.
"This autumn, for example, we will open our online store in Spain and Italy, and later on this year also in China. Next year we plan to open eight to ten new H&M online markets," he said.
H&M was founded in Sweden in 1947 and it is currently present in 53 markets worldwide.