As a part of expansion plans, Swedish fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) plans to hire 800 people, according to a report in the Business Today.
“We have 3,500 people working for the retail company and we would hire 800 more this year,” H&M India Country Manager Janne Einola was quoted as saying. The hiring will be for the new stores that are expected to open soon. However, no exact number of stores have been disclosed.
“Last year, we have opened 17 stores and I would continue the same pace this year. It would also depend on the availability of real estate at the locations where we want to go,” he further added.
The main focus would be on Tier I and Tier II cities.
With a total of nine label in its kitty, the H&M group, will not introduce any other brands in India under the current single-brand FDI retail policy due to the sourcing requirements.
Since last week, the retailer had also started online sales to track the customers from the places where it does not have any physical presence.
H&M, which has achieved break even in the its very first year of operation here, is confident to achieve better numbers. “For the global, we are saying that we would grow 15 per cent and off course India would grow more because it’s a growing market and we have just started here… A lot of expansion is coming from new stores,” he was quoted as saying.
In addition, the company is also in talks with the government to ease out the local sourcing conditions for the companies for their global operations.
With a focus on affordability, the price range starts from Rs 399 for ladies and denim with Rs 699.
H&M, which follows December-November financial year, had posted nearly two-fold increase in sales in India to 1,179 million Swedish krona (over Rs 955 crore) for the fiscal ended November 2017.
The Stockholm-based company owns brands including – H&M, H&M Home, COS, & Other Stories, Monki, Weekday Cheap Monday and ARKET. With a physical presence in 29 stores across the country, H&M will continue to open stores in new cities such as Mysore and Ahmedabad and also expand store counts in the existing metro markets such as Mumbai.
