Cold Weather in Europe Slows Inditex Sales, Profit Growth

  By Christopher Bjork 
 

MADRID--Consumers delaying buying summer clothes because of cold weather in Europe saw Inditex SA report its slowest quarterly sales growth in a year and a half.

Net profit in the three months from February through April rose 1.4% on year to 432 million euros, the world's largest fashion retailer said on Wednesday.

Sales of EUR3.59 billion grew at an annual pace of 5.2%--their slowest since the third quarter of 2011, the Spanish owner of the Zara brand said.

Inditex is "satisfied with the performance," the group's capital markets director Marcos Lopez said in a statement. The comparable result a year earlier had been unusually strong, he said adding that Inditex had positive like-for-like sales in the quarter.

Analysts polled by Factset were expecting EUR444 million in net profit on EUR3.64 billion in sales.

The retailer opened 49 new stores in the quarter in 30 different countries taking total stores to 6,058 in 86 markets.

Write to Christopher Bjork at [e-mail]

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