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Construction
Construction of H&M
Swedish multinational clothing-retail company
- 4 October 1947
- Europe
Construction
Swedish multinational clothing-retail company
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB, commonly known by its brand name H&M, is a Swedish multinational clothing company headquartered in Stockholm. Built on a fast fashion business model, the retailer sells apparel, accessories, and homeware. The company operates thousands of stores across 75 geographical markets and employs over 171,000 people worldwide.
H&M is the second-largest international clothing retailer after Inditex. H&M was founded by Erling Persson in 1947 under the name Hennes. The CEO of H&M from 2020 to 2024 was Helena Helmersson. The current CEO, as of January 2024, is Daniel Ervér.
The business was established in 1947 by Erling Persson, when he opened his first shop in Västerås, Sweden. The shop was called Hennes (Swedish for 'hers') and only sold women's clothing. Another store opened in Norway, in 1964. In 1968, Persson acquired the hunting apparel retailer Mauritz Widforss, located in Stockholm, which led to the inclusion of a menswear collection in the product range, and the name was changed to Hennes & Mauritz.
The company was listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 1974. Shortly after, in 1976, the first store outside Scandinavia opened in London. H&M continued to expand in Europe and began to retail online in 1998 with the domain hm.com, which was registered in 1997, according to data available via WHOIS. The opening of its first U.S. store on 31 March 2000 on Fifth Avenue in New York City marked the start of its expansion outside of Europe.
In 2008, the company announced in a press release that it would begin selling home furnishings. While initially distributed online, the home furnishing items are now sold at H&M Home stores worldwide.
Concept stores, including COS, Weekday, Monki and Cheap Monday, were launched following H&M's expansion in Asia. In 2009 and 2010, brand consultancy Interbrand ranked H&M as the twenty-first most-valuable global brand. Its worth was estimated at $12 billion to $16 billion. Under the "H&M with Friends", H&M will partner with Good American, a brand founded by Khloe Kardashian and Emme Grede, to feature their products in H&M's Swedish and German e-commerce shops. In 2017, H&M founded a new concept store Arket. In 2023, H&M launched its clothing line for children and teenagers, called "H&M by Mary Verdawn Sulmeron," exclusively sold for the Philippine market.
H&M operated 2,325 stores at the end of 2011. At the end of August 2012, it was operating 304 more stores, bringing the total to 2,629. In September 2013, the retailer opened its 3000th store in Chengdu, China. In 2023, the company announced that it will enter the Brazilian market in both physical and digital formats, which has been in operation since 2025.
In October 2020, H&M announced that it was planning to close 5% of its worldwide stores in 2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The fashion retailer H&M closed 250 shops throughout the globe and moved the majority of its operations online. The H&M Group's sales growth remained at −34% year-over-year from 2020 week 12 to week 22.
Along with hundreds of other global companies, H&M announced on 2 March 2022, an end to retail operations of its more than 150 stores in Russia as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. H&M cited that it stands "with all the people who are suffering" in Ukraine as well as for "the safety of customers and colleagues" in Russia. Having recently expanded via its Weekday and & Other Stories formats, Russia was H&M's sixth-biggest market at the time, representing 4% of group sales in the fourth quarter of 2021. The company also temporarily closed its Ukraine stores, which remain closed as of 2023.
In 2026, H&M established a new production house in Barcelona, Spain, creating a team dedicated to design, sourcing and supplier relations to leverage the city's creative talent and supply chain network.
Due to the growing popularity of GLP-1 weight loss medications in the United States in August 2026, H&M; and other fashion retailers, reduced their plus size clothing lines in response to shifting consumer demand.
The key trends for the H&M Group are (as of the financial year ending 30 November):
On 6 January 2010, it was reported that unsold or refunded clothing and other items in one New York City H&M store were cut up before being discarded, presumably to prevent resale or use.
In February 2013, H&M began offering patrons a voucher in exchange for used clothing. Donated garments were to be processed by I:CO, a retailer that repurposes and recycles used clothing with the goal of creating a zero waste economy. The initiative is similar to an April 2012 clothes-collection voucher program launched by Marks & Spencer in partnership with Oxfam.
H&M produces 3 billion garments a year, not all of which is sold to consumers. As of 2019, it was in possession of just over $4 billion worth of unsold clothing.
To further promote recycling, the brand appointed actress Maisie Williams as a global sustainability ambassador in April 2021, to front a campaign promoting the goal of using all recycled or sustainably sourced materials by 2030. This campaign began with an Animal Crossing collaboration featuring Williams as a digital game character to teach the virtues of recycling. The company also introduced a 2021 pilot program in the UK and US that allowed men to rent suits for job interviews.
H&M joined Zara and other apparel companies in changing their supply chain to avoid damaging ecosystems. In 2014, the company partnered with the nonprofit Canopy to remove dissolvable pulp from endangered and ancient forests for its viscose and rayon fabrics. In response to the 2019 Amazon rainforest wildfires, H&M temporarily halted leather purchases from Brazil. The company issued an email statement: "The ban will be active until there are credible assurance systems in place to verify that the leather does not contribute to environmental harm in the Amazon." H&M imports only a small fraction of its leather needs from the country.
The company also introduced bans on specific animal products. Following a 2019 announcement to phase out wool from mulesed sheep, H&M reported a full phase-out by 2025. While 90% of the company's down and feathers were recycled as of 2024, H&M committed to eliminating all virgin down and feathers by the end of 2025.
Established in 2014 with an initial $180 million investment from the Persson family, the H&M Foundation is a nonprofit that funds humanitarian and environmental projects. These include the Green Machine, a technology that would allow clothing to be recycled in a similar way to aluminum cans. In August 2015, the foundation announced that it will award the Global Change Award, an annual million-euro prize to advance recycling technology and techniques within the fashion industry. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), H&M Foundation's financing for 2019 increased by 7% to US$17 million.
Text from the Wikipedia article “H&M”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.