AKIPRESS.COM - Fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz's recent strong sales growth has slowed sharply this month as unusually warm weather delayed purchases of cold-weather gear, it said on Thursday after reporting quarterly profit in line with expectations, reports Reuters. 

The Swedish company said sales in the Sept. 1-23 period rose 7 percent, compared with a near-20 percent increase in August, putting September on track to be the slowest month for sales growth this year.

In the six months from March through August, sales growth averaged 16 percent.

In H&M's home town of Stockholm, which has enjoyed unseasonably warm weather this month, one store had sweaters, scarves, gloves and jackets with faux fur lining in autumn colours of browns and maroon on prominent display.

"September was a little lower than we had planned because some products haven't sold due to the warm weather," Chief Executive Karl-Johan Persson told a news conference.

The performance of the world's second-biggest fashion retailer in recent months had helped its shares outperform those of bigger rival Inditex, pulling them up 6 percent this year against a 7 percent fall for the Spanish group.

However, the news of sharply slowing sales in September pushed H&M shares down 3.5 percent by 0908 GMT compared with a 0.4 percent weaker European retail index, while Inditex shares were little changed. H&M shares trade at 23 times forward earnings against 25.5 times for Inditex.

"Clearly, H&M can deliver very strong earnings growth when they are able to grow sales at about 20 percent, but given a long run average like-for-like sales rate of 1 percent, we remain cautious," Bernstein analyst Jamie Merriman said.

H&M reported pre-tax profit up 20 percent at 7 billion crowns ($974 million) in its June-August third quarter, in line with analysts' forecasts.