The performance of fashion retail giant Inditex has been encouraging as its S/S21 collections was well received by customers. The company aims to open all its stores by April 12, the date on which non-essential shops in England are allowed to reopen.

As now, only 15 per cent stores remained temporarily closed and in the first week of March, excluding the five most relevant markets in lockdown at the moment, total sales grew by 2 per cent. The retailer’s total sales reached €20.4 billion during FY2020 meanwhile its gross profit fell to €11.4 billion from €15.8 billion and the gross margin dropped 6bps to 55.8 per cent. The retailer’s operating expenses fell by 17 per cent while its EBITDA declined by 40 per cent at €4.6 billion. Its net income declined by 70 per cent to €1.1 billion during the first half while in the second half it declined by only 38 per cent.

Online sales in constant currencies increased 77 per cent and reached €6.6 billion. Although the company launched Zara online in as many as 25 new markets last year, it said 95 per cent of its online sales growth was organic. The group’s online visits reached 5.3 billion, which was a rise of 50 per cent from the previous year.