Urban Outfitters gets back on track in third quarter

Following several quarters of negative results, Urban Outfitters’ third quarter was one of growth. Total turnover grew 3.5 % and there was a 1 % like-for-like growth.

Record turnover

The turnover growth came from all of the fashion company’s brands, including Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie and Free People. Its third quarter turnover reached 893 million dollars (760 million euro), but it did fail to replicate this form in its profit numbers. Its pre-tax profit grew from 71.2 to 72 million dollars (61 million euro), but only 45 million dollars (38 million euro) remained. This final result is actually lower than 2016’s third quarter net profit, which stood at 47.3 million dollars.

“I am very happy to report record third quarter turnover, positive retail sales for all brands and another strong wholesale performance for Free People”, CEO Richard Hayne said.

Over the past quarter, Urban Outfitters was the company’s largest brand by a very slim margin, but spread across the first three quarters, Anthropologie comes out on top. In the first two quarters, Urban Outfitters seriously underperformed and to this day, it is still the only one of the three brands to have an overall turnover drop when considering the first nine months.