Fashion retail group Inditex reported a 7 percent increase in revenues in the first nine months of the year amounting to EUR12.7 billion (USD).
In the first nine months of 2014, it opened a net 230 new stores, in 50 countries and expanded its online footprint. Over the nine months, Inditex said net new openings hit 154 in Europe, 34 in the Americas and 70 in Asia and the rest of the world, bringing the global footprint to 6,570 stores across 88 markets.
During the third quarter, Stradivarius opened its first store in the UK, Massimo Dutti launched in Austria and Pull&Bear opened its first store in the Philippines.
Openings also include four new Zara stores in Australia (Sydney, Perth and Brisbane), a further four Zara stores in Germany (Bremen, Stuttgart, Berlin and Hagen), plus another three in Brazil (Fortaleza, Santa Catarina and Vila Velha), two in the US (California and Virginia), two in Japan (Osaka and Kawasaki) and eight in China, as well as new Zara stores in cities such as Seoul, Cape Town and Vienna.
Meanwhile, the new Massimo Dutti store in the historic heart of Vienna (Kholmarkt, 9) and in Seoul (Coex Mall); three new Pull&Bear stores in Germany (in Dresden, Stuttgart and Oberhausen); two new Bershka stores in Japan (Osaka and Utsunomiya) plus another four in Germany (Berlin, Stuttgart, Mannheim and Dresden); as well as further openings in major shopping districts in cities such as Osaka, Nagoya and Rio de Janeiro. In November, Zara Home launched in South Korea and Hungary.
Implementation of RFID technology continued as scheduled. Inditex said it plans for this stock management technology to be fully operational in 1,000 Zara stores (including all of the concepts stores in Spain, Portugal, the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Serbia and much of the US) by the end of this year; with the aim of implementing RFID in all Zara stores by 2016.
This innovative system is enabling Zara to enhance the customer offering by speeding up the purchasing process and improving the availability of popular stock on the shop floor through better data collection between stores and distribution centres.
Over the past year, Inditex said it has created 8,520 new jobs, while global headcount totalled 133,400 as at 31 October.