Britain, France and China give big boost to Hugo Boss

Upscale Hugo Boss had a good Christmas trading period with the German firm saying its Q4 sales rose and that profits will grow in FY19. It was all helped by growth in the UK, France and China, as well as its webstore expansion.

Preliminary figures showed Q4 sales rising as much as 7% to €783 million with an almost-as-good rise in local currencies (up 6%). And the company said that both its retail and wholesale operations saw “significant” increases.

CEO Mark Langer said: ”We are convinced [we will] grow sustainably and profitably in 2019 and beyond. The new year will entirely be focused on the execution of our business plan until 2022.”

Adjusted for currency effects, sales in the group's own retail business grew 4% both on a like-for-like store basis and in total, despite tough comparisons with the year earlier when business was also buoyant.

Currency-adjusted comp sales in the European and American retail businesses rose in the mid-single-digits and low-single-digits, respectively. As mentioned that European growth was driven by strength in the UK and France. And China was up in the high-single-digits.

Wholesale turnover rose as much as 15% and online soared by 37% currency-adjusted, the fifth consecutive quarterly rise in e-sales.