H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB (publ) (HM_B) Q1 2026 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the H&M three-month report 2026 webcast and conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Josef Ahlberg, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Good morning and a warm welcome, everyone. Today, we present the first quarter results for 2026 for the H&M Group. My name is Josef Ahlberg, and I'm Head of Investor Relations. Before I hand over to our CEO, Daniel Hervear, I'd like to share this morning's setup. Daniel will share a short summary of our results, walk you through selected highlights from the quarter, and provide a brief outlook. We will then open up for a Q&A session where Daniel, our CFO, Adam Karlsson, and I will be available to answer your questions. So with that, please welcome Daniel. Good morning, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us today. In the first quarter, we continue to make important progress. in a quarter marked by a cautious consumer and large currency translation effects. Overall, our profitability continues to improve. The rolling 12-month operating margin increased to 8.4% up from 7.0% last year. Looking at sales, sales decreased with 1% in local currencies during the quarter. This was mainly driven by weaker demand in December following strong Black Friday sales in November, combined with around 4% fewer stores and a co...