Fast Fashion Flourishes in U.S. & Russia

After a pandemic slump, H&M managed to up its sales in the first nine months by 5.7 percent compared to the first nine months of 2020. As our chart shows, this growth can largely be contributed to three of its key markets.

The fashion retailer accumulated $2.3 billion in sales in the U.S. alone, a change of almost 35 percent compared to 2020's first three quarter period. Following closely behind is Germany with $2.2 billion sales volume. While it still managed to grome on its home turf in Sweden, the second-biggest increase in sales revenue came from a comparatively small market. Russian shoppers only contributed $656 million to the company's total revenue, but the market still grew by almost one third in terms of sales when compared to the period of January to September in 2020.

Even though clothing retailers like H&M have long established a robust e-commerce framework, the Swedish fashion giant still heavily relies on physical storefronts. When corona restrictions were eased in many countries around the world this past spring, H&M was among the profiteers of people regaining more freedom of movement. The company raked in a pretax profit of $695 million in its third quarter, increasing the profit from the same period last year by 158 percent and from 2019's third quarter by 22 percent.

This profit comes as a price though. While the company is introducing sustainability solutions like customers bringing in their old clothing for H&M to recycle and utilizing sustainable cotton, the problems of hazardous working conditions and low pay in factories in China, Bangladesh and India as well as synthetic fibers like polyester releasing microplastic when washed and polution by overproduction are still largely unsolved.