The January figures for the Swedish clothing market were published this morning. Sales grew by 4%, continuing the positive sales growth seen at the end of last year.

Lindex’s Q4 report was solid. Analyst Rauli Juva goes through the results.

Lindex’s Q4 result was stronger than we expected and the outlook for the year is slightly positive. We increased our forecasts for this year, while otherwise our view remains unchanged.

Lindex Group's Q4 results were clearly stronger than we expected, and the full-year adj. EBIT was in the middle of the guidance range at 75 MEUR, while in January we expected the result to remain below 70 MEUR.

Lindex seems to have avoided the profit warning we had expected, which brings our forecast to the lower end of the guidance range. We expect this year's guidance to point to modest earnings growth.

On an annual basis, total trade grew by 2%, driven in practice only by food. Thus,

Sales grew by 6%, so sales growth remained good also toward the end of the month.

The target market of Kesko, Tokmanni and Lindex’s Stockmann division, i.e., the department store and hypermarket chains, grew by 4.7% year-on-year.

Growth in early December was entirely driven by strong online sales growth.