As Spanish apparel giant Inditex continues its global expansion in earnest, the Inditex Asia business is accounting for a major share of the action.
Inditex is committed to both multi-brand and multi-channel strategies as it builds it global dominance of the fast fashion market.
During the first nine months of 2015 it opened 230 stores in 48 markets.
Online, Zara extended its eCommerce presence to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. Inditex also launched online operations in the southern hemisphere with the launch of Zarahome.com in Australia on December 3 – soon after the homewares brand opened online in Japan.
Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, Stradivarius and Oysho all launched online in China.
Inditex opened physical stores in all continents during the nine months to the end of October. The net number of stores across the group’s brands increased by 109 in Europe, by 47 in the Americas – and in Asia and the rest of the world, by a net 74, taking the group’s global store count to 6913.
In Asia, these openings included new Zara stores in Osaka (Japan), Beijing, Harbin and Hong Kong (China) and in Singapore.
Bershka opened its first store in Taiwan and a flagship store in Korea; and Stradivarius, with openings in the Chinese cities of Chengdu and Harbin.
Oysho has opened its first store in Korea; Zara Home opened its flagship in Sydney (marking its 500th store worldwide).
As at the end of October, Inditex had a presence in 88 markets, with online operations in 28 of these.
Inditex said its net profit over the first nine months of the year was up 20 per cent to €2.020 billion. Net sales increased 16 per cent year on year to €14.74 billion.