AFP – Swedish clothing retail giant Hennes and Mauritz (H&M), hit hard by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, reported better-than-expected third quarter results despite a halved net profit yesterday
Net profit for the period from June to August came in at about $201 million, compared with about 438 million for the same period a year earlier.
Revenue fell 18.7 percent to about $5.725 million.
Pre-tax profit came in at about $269 million, an improvement over the roughly $225 million reported in preliminary results published in mid-September.
“Our recovery is going better than expected… With more full-price sales than expected and strict cost control, we returned to profit already in the third quarter,” Helena Helmersson, CEO of H&M, said in a statement.
Fashion retailers, especially fast-fashion brands such as H&M, have been hit hard by the ongoing pandemic. In mid-April, the Scandinavian company temporarily closed around 80 percent of its stores worldwide.
Currently, 3 percent, or 166 shops, remain shut.
In its second quarter H&M posted a net loss of some $561 million, compared with a net profit of $517 million a year earlier while revenue halved to about $3.2 million.
In 2021, H&M, which has around 5,000 shops worldwide, expects it will need
to cut about 250.
H&M sources goods from factories in the Kingdom employing about 77,000 workers, claiming it has been driving different social programmes on the ground to improve the livelihoods and working conditions of garment workers in Cambodia.
The company has been operating in Cambodia since its first orders in the 1990s.
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