Overview
H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB, through H&M Group, is a global fashion and design company that sells clothing, accessories, footwear, beauty products, home textiles and homeware through physical stores and digital channels.[1][2] Its brand portfolio includes H&M, COS, Cheap Monday, Weekday, Monki, & Other Stories, ARKET and Singular Society, while the H&M brand also spans concepts such as H&M HOME, H&M Move and H&M Beauty.[3][4]
The company states its purpose as “liberate fashion for the many,” and its business idea as “fashion and quality at the best price, in a sustainable way.”[5][6] Founded in 1947, it has built a large international retail footprint, with about 4,250 stores worldwide, operations in 79 markets and around 140,000 colleagues.[7][8][9] In 2024, net sales were approximately SEK 234 billion.[10] [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]
Products & services
H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB offers products and services through multiple retail concepts. The core H&M brand sells fashion apparel and accessories across a broad style range, including designer collaborations, functional sportswear, wardrobe essentials, beauty products and accessories. H&M HOME adds home furnishings and décor such as bed linen, dinnerware, textiles, furniture and lighting, while H&M BEAUTY includes in-house makeup, a fragrance collection and a curated assortment of more than 80 global and Scandinavian beauty brands. H&M MOVE focuses on activewear for women, men and children, covering uses such as yoga, running, training and racket sports.[11][12][13][14]
Its other brands extend the product range into more specialized segments. COS offers ready-to-wear clothing and accessories positioned around lasting design and quality. Weekday sells street-fashion and lifestyle products including jeans, womenswear, menswear and accessories, and also reintroduced Cheap Monday through its channels. & Other Stories offers ready-to-wear, shoes, bags, accessories and beauty products. ARKET sells essential collections for women, men, children and the home, and also combines its merchandise offer with a seasonal vegetarian café and coffee shop concept. Singular Society is a membership-based offer for premium products sold with transparent pricing and product information.[15][16][17][18][19]
The group also provides service-oriented and circular product offerings. Sellpy operates as a digital platform for buying and selling secondhand fashion and other products, while Looper Textile Co. provides collection and sorting solutions aimed at reuse and recycling of used garments. Creator Studio offers merchandise design and production services through a platform that supports lean production, made-to-order digital printing and e-commerce integration. In 2024, resell turnover represented 0.6% of H&M Group turnover, and resell was available in 30% of selling markets and 0.9% of stores.[20][21][22][23] [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]
Geographic presence
H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB and its franchise partners are represented in 79 markets, with H&M stores in 78 markets and online sales in 60 markets. Its sales base is weighted toward Europe: in 2024, the Nordics generated SEK 20.6 billion, Western Europe SEK 79.6 billion, Eastern Europe SEK 21.2 billion, and Southern Europe SEK 31.5 billion, together about 65% of group net sales; North and South America contributed SEK 51.8 billion, and Asia, Oceania and Africa SEK 29.8 billion. The largest individual country markets were Germany at SEK 35.7 billion, the US at SEK 30.7 billion, the UK at SEK 17.2 billion, and France at SEK 11.1 billion.[24][25][26]
The store network is also concentrated in Europe, which had 2,449 stores, compared with 759 in North and South America and 1,045 in Asia, Oceania and Africa.[27][28][29] The parent company is domiciled in Stockholm, Sweden, and the group’s head office is at Mäster Samuelsgatan 46A, SE-106 38 Stockholm; group functions there coordinate with regional and country offices.[30][31][32] Average employment was 97,710 full-time equivalents, including 9,525 in Sweden.[33] [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]
Business segments
H&M reports segments under IFRS 8 using countries as the basic operating units, which are then aggregated into three reportable geographic segments: Asia and Oceania, Europe and Africa, and North and South America. The parent company and subsidiaries with no external sales are reported separately as Group Functions; this line also includes certain group-wide results realized across multiple geographies.[34][35][36]
Based on 2024 external net sales, Europe and Africa is by far the largest reported segment at SEK 154,060m, or about 65.7% of group external sales, followed by North and South America at SEK 51,799m, or about 22.1%, and Asia and Oceania at SEK 28,619m, or about 12.2%. Group Functions had no external sales, so it is presented separately but is not a revenue-generating segment in the same sense.[37][35]
H&M also provides a second, more granular geographic sales view by retail region rather than reportable segment. In 2024, Western Europe accounted for SEK 79,550m of net sales, or about 33.9% of the total; North & South America SEK 51,798m, or 22.1%; Southern Europe SEK 31,507m, or 13.4%; Asia, Oceania & Africa SEK 29,815m, or 12.7%; Eastern Europe SEK 21,181m, or 9.0%; and the Nordics SEK 20,627m, or 8.8%.[25]
The group discloses a portfolio of brands including H&M, H&M HOME, H&M BEAUTY, H&M MOVE, COS, Weekday, Cheap Monday, Monki, & Other Stories, ARKET, Singular Society and Sellpy, but its official sales segmentation is geographic rather than brand-based. The annual report provides some brand-level store counts, but not an official brand-by-brand revenue split.[29][38][35] [34][35][36][37][25][29][38]
Company history
H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB traces its origins to 1947, when Erling Persson opened the first Hennes womenswear store in Västerås, Sweden.[7][39][40] The business expanded to Stockholm in 1952, and in 1968 Persson acquired the hunting and menswear retailer Mauritz Widforss; that deal added menswear and led to the name Hennes & Mauritz, or H&M.[41] H&M was listed on the Stockholm stock exchange in 1974, and in 1976 it opened its first store outside Scandinavia, in London, marking the start of its broader international expansion.[42][41] [7][39][40][41][42]
Sources
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