Zara's parent company Inditex reaches a market value of over 150 billion euros

As of the close of trading on August 20, the Spanish fast fashion giant Inditex Group, which owns brands like Zara, Massimo Dutti, and Stradivarius, saw its share price hit 48.09 euros, marking the company's market value surpassing 150 billion euros for the first time. This achievement makes Inditex the first Spanish company to exceed a market value of 150 billion euros.

Currently, Inditex is also the highest-valued company in the Spanish Ibex 35 index, which tracks the 35 largest listed companies in Spain. It surpasses Spanish energy giant Iberdrola, valued at 80 billion euros, and Banco Santander, valued at 67 billion euros.

Additionally, in the European Stoxx 50 index, which consists of 50 stocks from 11 Eurozone countries, Inditex is ranked sixth. The top five companies include ASML from the Netherlands, one of the world's largest semiconductor equipment suppliers (market value of about 339.85 billion euros), French luxury goods company LVMH (market value of about 339.2 billion euros), German software company SAP (market value of about 243.5 billion euros), French luxury brand Hermès (market value of about 231 billion euros), and French cosmetics company L'Oréal (market value of about 206.4 billion euros). Inditex shares the sixth position with French oil group TotalEnergies, whose market value is also slightly above 150 billion euros.

According to Inditex's financial report for Q1 of fiscal year 2024, for the three months ending April 30, 2024, the group's sales grew to 8.2 billion euros. At constant exchange rates, the growth rate reached 10.6%. Although this represents a slowdown from last year's 15%, it still exceeded market analysts' expectations.

With the increase in sales, Inditex's gross profit for the quarter also grew by 7.3%, reaching 4.9 billion euros, and net income surged to 1.3 billion euros, up 10.8% from 1.17 billion euros in the same period last year.

In terms of store expansion, Inditex opened a series of new stores and reopened 48 stores in Q1 of fiscal year 2024. Notably, the group opened its first store in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on February 29. As of now, Inditex operates a total of 5,698 stores worldwide.

In the Chinese market, Zara has been closing some of its stores this year to focus on flagship and larger stores. Recently, Inditex announced that Zara's next flagship store in the Asia-Pacific region will be located in Nanjing, with preparations underway. The new store, spanning over 3,000 square meters, will become one of the largest flagship stores in China, showcasing the latest flagship store design.

Meanwhile, Zara has expanded its product lines to include more high-end and designer items, broadening the brand's price range with products priced in the thousand-yuan range.