H&M plans to close 250 stores next year as the coronavirus crisis drives more shoppers online. The brand has shut more stores and opened fewer over the past couple of years as it adapts to the online shift that is driving more competition. The company’s sales continued to recover in September from the impact of the virus.
Its pretax profit declined to 2.37 billion crowns ($265.6 million) in its fiscal third quarter, from a year-earlier 5.01 billion. Analysts polled by Refinitiv had on average seen a 2.03 billion crown profit.
In the March-May quarter, H&M’s sales halves while they declined by 5 per cent in September after falling by 19 per cent in the three months through August.
Of more than 5,000 of the brand’s stores worldwide, 3 per cent remain temporarily shut against around 80 per cent at the height of lockdowns. The brand’s inventories remained unchanged from a year earlier. Markdowns increased half a percentage point, and H&M predicts they would grow by 1-1.5 per cent in the current quarter.
