Revenue from department store and hypermarket chains declined by 1% in February. The best performing product group was food, where sales remained at the level of the comparison period and which may have been negatively affected by delivery days but also by a few days of strikes in grocery stores.

The February figures for the Swedish clothing market were published this morning. Sales decreased by 4%, mainly due to the calendar effect, as last year February had one more day due to the leap year.

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,