MADRID (dpa-AFX) - Spanish fashion retailer Industria de Diseño Textil SA (IDEXF.PK) or Inditex reported Wednesday higher profit in its first half with strong like-for-like sales growth. EBITDA, a key earnings metric, improved 9 percent, while gross margin declined. Inditex shares were losing around 3 percent in the morning trading.
Regarding the current trading, the company noted that sales in local currencies in stores and online have grown 12 percent between August 1 and September 17.
For the first half, net profit amounted to 1.37 billion euros, an year-on-year growth of 9 percent. Earnings before interest and tax or EBIT improved 9 percent to 1.74 billion euros from prior year's 1.61 billion euros.
EBITDA was 2.29 billion euros, higher than 2.11 billion euros a year earlier.
In the first half, gross profit grew 11 percent from last year to 6.58 billion euros, while gross margin dropped to 56.4 percent from 56.8 percent a year ago.
Revenue rose 11.5 percent in the first half to 11.7 billion euros from last year's 10.47 billion euros, underpinned by growth across all markets and brands.
Like-for-like sales growth was 6 percent.and were positive across all geographies.
Capital expenditure for the full year is estimated at 1.5 billion euros.
Further, Inditex said it will pay an final ordinary and bonus dividend totaling 0.34 euros per share, before tax, on November 2, thereby completing the 0.68 euros per share dividend declared against 2016 earnings.
The company also continued to generate jobs at a healthy pace, having created 11,043 new positions in the last 12 months. Of these, 2,933 jobs are located in Spain, resulting from growing teams at its headquarters.
Inditex shares were trading at 31.86 euros, down 2.52 percent.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX