Global clothing retailer Inditex, parent company of Zara, on Wednesday (March 16) in its 2021 full-year and fourth-quarter earnings presentation said it expects 30% of its revenue to come from online sales in 2024, continuing a transition to a more eCommerce-heavy business that started during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Inditex announced online sales of 7.5 billion euros ($8.25 billion) in 2021, good for a 14% increase over 2020. Online revenues rose 77% from 2019 to 2020, starting at 14% of the company’s revenue in 2019, according to a report in the Financial Times.
Net profit almost tripled from 2020 to 3.24 billion euros ($3.56 billion) in 2021, as stores reopened and foot traffic picked up last year with fewer pandemic-related restrictions in place around the world. Total revenues of 27.7 billion euros ($30.45 billion) for 2021 were up 36% from 2020 and in the range of 2019’s level.
Inditex has temporarily closed its stores in Russia and Ukraine as the attacks continue in that region, but the company’s sales growth continued from Feb. 1 through March 13, with revenues 33% higher than the same time period a year earlier.
Meanwhile, Marta Ortega, daughter of Inditex founder Amancio Ortega, will take over as the company’s chairperson on April 1, replacing Pablo Isla. Óscar García Maceiras recently took over as Inditex’s new chief executive.
Related: Preparing For The Second Wave Of The Digital Shift
Inditex’s digital shift — like most other companies’ embrace of eCommerce — started in the first half of 2020, when the coronavirus was raging around the globe and there were many more unknowns about the effects it could have on the global economy.
Inditex spent millions on its online presence with Zara and its other brands, in an effort to create more digital market share, independent of anything Amazon was doing or is doing today.
Not only does the digital shift open up Inditex and other retailers to new audiences, but it also increases the share of what PYMNTS has called Commerce Connected through mobile commerce, mobile payments and mobile wallets.
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