H&M extends project to open stores in

Second largest clothing retailer in the world, the Swedish H&M has expanded its store opening plan for this year, but still left the market out of its route expansion in the short term. With 2,818 points of sale in 48 countries, the company planned to open 325 stores in 2013; now will be 350.
The retailer, which competes directly with the Spanish Zara (Inditex Group) in "fast fashion" model, already has a date to debut in Latin America. The first store will open in Santiago, Chile, on Saturday.
People linked to the sector of clothing the company ever rode comment that Office in Brazil, but that the start of activities coming up in the complexity of structuring a transaction in the country.
In the first performance report fiscal quarter, the H&M also not cited Brazil in your project to explore new markets in 2014, the year in which the company should begin to expand in Australia.
Most of the stores planned for this year--42 of them have been open-will be in China and in the United States. Besides Chile, the company will come to Estonia, Lithuania, Serbia and Indonesia. In the case of Indonesia, the stores are franchised.
In the quarter between December and February, the company registered 10.25% drop in net profits to 2.45 billion SEK (US $ 377,6 million) compared to a year earlier. In the same comparison, the company's revenue grew 2 percent to 28.39 billion SEK ($ 4.4 billion).
The operating profit (before interest and taxes) totaled 3.13 billion SEK (US $ 482,4 million) Kickback from a little over 11%. The operating margin fell from 12.7% to 11%.
The result, which was below the expectations of the company itself, was not exactly a surprise to the market. A week ago, the H&M reported that its sales at units open more than a year ago ("same store") had fallen 3% from December to February compared to the same period last year.
According to H&M, sales were hindered by the unusual cold in some regions of Europe and the consequent delay in release of the spring collection. Moreover, according to the company management, the performance of the quarter was affected by the macroeconomic environment "challenging".
In addition to the H&M flag, the Group's portfolio includes the brands COS, Monki, Weekday, Cheap Monday and H&M Home.