The FINANCIAL — Swedish retailer Hennes & Mauritz said Monday that its comparable sales rose 1% in January.
H&M reports that this month's figure was negatively impacted by calendar effects of approximately 3 percentage units.
Shares in the Swedish company soared last month when a turnaround in sales was announced in the fourth-quarter report, reversing seven months of consecutive same-store sales declines, The Wall Street Journal reports. Fashion retailers around the world have been hit hard as the economic downturn forced consumers to rein in spending.
In December, the company posted a 3 percent rise in same-store sales, the first positive result since April, and beat expectations for its quarterly earnings, according to Reuters.
"That is another positive month, due to the fact that you have easier comparables and due to the fact that it seems that consumers are returning to the stores," Soren Lontoft Hansen, analyst at Sydban, the same source reports. "They're not power shopping, but at least they are coming back."
H&M's total sales, which includes sales in new stores, rose 11% in January, underperforming analyst forecasts of 12%, The Wall Street Journal wrote. H&M reports only percentage changes for its monthly sales, not actual revenue. In its fourth quarter report, it said sales up to Jan. 26 increased 13%.
H&M is expanding its footprint in Asia but its largest market remains Germany, where it could soon be facing off against British discount retailer Primark, Reuters informs.
Analyst Anders Wiklund at Evli Bank noted that January comparable sales came in as expected, adding that the small dip in total sales is less important, according to The Wall Street Journal. Wiklund has an "accumulate" rating with a target price of 450 Swedish kronor ($61.92). The total number of H&M stores world-wide increased by 14% to 1,987 in January from 1,741 a year earlier.
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