The textile chain Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) has set itself ambitious goals for the coming year.
Compared to 2021, H&M wants to double its sales.
The operating margin should exceed 10 percent, and this mark should be reached by 2024 at the latest.
This is to be made possible by expanding online business and entering new markets.
H&M announced this in Stockholm on Friday.
More sales, more profit
Stefanie Diemand
Editor in Business.
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The company also wants to become more sustainable: the CO2 footprint is to be halved by 2030 compared to 2019.
So far, the company has not had the most sustainable reputation as a so-called fast fashion brand.
For the ambitious plans, H&M announced investments of ten billion Swedish crowns (956 million euros) for 2022.
In the 2020/21 financial year, the company achieved 199 billion crowns, twelve percent more than in the previous year.
Profit rose from 1.2 billion to 11 billion crowns.
For the first two months of the 2021/22 financial year, which has been running since December, the fashion retailer initially expects a currency-adjusted increase in sales of around 20 percent compared to the same period last year.
This period was still characterized by the pandemic and the measures ordered by the authorities, such as shop closures.
Shareholders are to receive a dividend of 6.50 crowns per share.
H&M also wants to acquire its own shares for three billion crowns.
This should support the course.
Investors were also pleased with the positive news: the share rose by up to 7.4 percent to a six-and-a-half-month high of 191.86 crowns.
That was the biggest price jump in more than a year.