Retailer’s sales growth due to increase in selling space and like for like performance improvement.
Fast fashion retailer Primark has enjoyed an increase in sales for the first quarter – no doubt in part buoyed by its continued focus on popular licences.
Parent company Associated British Foods said trading at Primark for the 16-week period saw sales 4.5% ahead of last year (at constant currency), reported Fashion United.
The sales growth has been attributed to the increase in selling space and like for like performance improvement, driven by an upturn in the Eurozone.
The UK saw a sales rise of 4%, while sales in the Eurozone were 5.1% ahead of last year, with strong progress being made in France and Italy.
The company added that the improvement in like for like sales in the final quarter of last financial year continued and at this early stage, there was a notable improvement in Germany.
Meanwhile, Primark’s US business delivered like for like sales growth in the period.
Primark opened three new stores during the period: Seville Lagoh in Spain, Kiel in Germany and Milan Fiordaliso in Italy.
In this financial year, the retailer is expecting to open 18 new stores, as well as making a number of relocations. It will also enter the Polish market with a new store in Warsaw in spring 2020, followed by an outlet in Prague, Czech Republic.
Fashion United added that Primark has also signed leases for a further store in Poland, in Poznan, and its first store in Slovakia, in Bratislava, which will take the company to its 15th country.
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