Beijing time March 29th afternoon news, the second largest European clothing retailer Sweden Hennes &Mauritz AB (H&M) today announced the first quarter of fiscal year 2012 financial report. Data show that in the past three months as of February 29th this year, the company achieved a net profit of 2 billion 740 million kronor ($411 million 900 thousand), an increase of 4.6% over the previous year's 2 billion 620 million Swedish kronor. As textile costs and price cuts had a negative impact on earnings, H&M's performance in the first quarter of fiscal year 2012 was lower than expected in the market, and 12 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had expected an average profit of 2 billion 990 million Krona in the first quarter of fiscal year 2012 in H&M.

John, Karl-Johan CEO of H&M, said in a statement today: "despite the rise in procurement costs, we still do not raise the prices of products sold to customers, so the competitiveness of the products we offer to our customers continues to grow." (Karl-Johan Persson) The increase in procurement costs is partly due to the price of cotton for the first quarter of this year, which is higher than that for the same period of the previous fiscal year, but the rise in costs is also related to the long-term investment of the company aimed at expanding the product scale. "

H&M also said that the gross profit margin of the company in the first quarter of fiscal year 2012 fell to 55.8% from 57.8% in the same period last fiscal year. H&M's European retail sales in January turned around a 4 month decline, with an unexpected rebound. The euro zone sovereign debt crisis has greatly reduced consumer confidence in Europe, while 11 of H&M's 12 best performing markets are in Europe. In other words, from March 1st to March 27th this year, sales of H&M increased by 22% over the same period last fiscal year.