Good summer helps excellent results
The surge was mainly because of new store openings, but on a
like-for-like basis the increase was still 5 %: a remarkable achievement, as competitor Marks&Spencer had to accept a 1.5 % drop
for the first 6 months, on a like-for-like basis.
It believes this drop was because of the discounts it had
to give to pull in customers. Primark on the other hand has stated it did not
use many discounts as particularly its summer sales were marvelous. That led to
a 44 % profit increase to 514 million pounds (over 610 million euro).
Continue the
current course
The biggest contribution to the increases sales numbers
was from the bigger number of stores: Primark has opened 15 new stores,
resulting in a total of 257 stores. Its second Belgian store, in Ghent, came in September, while the chain is opening a sixth Dutch store on 19 November in Eindhoven. It expects to open new stores in
Venlo, Enschede and Arnhem in 2014.
Using the British web shop Asos, Primark had joined
the world of online sales, an experiment that was halted three months later.
The fashion chain has stated it has no plans of creating a web shop itself.
(Translated by Gary Peeters)
