H&M's March sales tumble 46% as pandemic hits; sees Q2 loss

[STOCKHOLM] H&M, the world's second-biggest clothing retailer, reported on Friday a 46 per cent plunge in March sales as the novel coronavirus pandemic took its toll and said it expected to run a loss in its fiscal second quarter.

"The second quarter will naturally be very negatively impacted by the corona situation and will therefore be loss-making," the Swedish group said.

Fiscal first-quarter pretax profit more than doubled to 2.50 billion Swedish krone (S$343.6 million) from a year-ago 1.04 billion krone.

Six analysts polled between March 17 and March 26 had on average expected a rise to 1.47 billion krone, according to Refinitiv data.

REUTERS