Owner of the Zara brand, Inditex, saw its sales rise on Wednesday in its half year results.
Shares in the company were down during trading on Wednesday morning.
Inditex said that it achieved a “strong” operating performance.
From 1 February to 31 July, Inditex said that net sales amounted to €12.8 billion – 7% higher than the figure recorded during the same period a prior.
The Spanish multinational clothing company added that it continues to expand its physical and online stores.
“Like-for-like sales grew 5% in 1H2019 on 4% in 1H2018 and were positive across all concepts and all geographies, in both stores and online,” Inditex said in its results.
“The like-for-like calculation includes store sales (i.e. sales in stores opened for the whole of first half fiscal years 2019 and 2018) and online. This represents 89% of total sales,” the company added.
The owner of Zara added that it has started the second half of the year well, and its autumn/winter initial collections have been “well received”. For the first few weeks, store and online sales in local currencies rose 8%, and the company expects like-for-like sales growth to lie between 4-6% for the overall year.
In March, Zara online sales were launched in Brazil. This was followed by the launch of Zara online sales in May in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Indonesia, Serbia and Israel.
In addition to the Zara brand, Inditex owns other high street fashion names such as Pull&Bear, Bershka and Stradivarius.
The fashion retail sector has experienced difficulties in the past year as businesses struggle for survival amid a gloomy trading environment to hit the wider high street. Physical shops are often sidelined by shoppers who turn to online stores for money saving offers.
Retailers across the UK have been left struggling as job cuts and store closures prevail.
Elsewhere on the UK high street, the leading trainer and sports fashion retailer, JD Sports (LON:JD), posted its half year results yesterday, beating the high street gloom.
Shares in Industria de Diseno Textil SA (BME:ITX) were trading at -2.41% as of 11:11 CEST Wednesday.
