Agencies
Zara owner Inditex reported on Wednesday a slower start to its first quarter starting Feb. 1, raising questions and concerns around its ability to keep on the momentum of recent rapid growth – sending its shares tumbling close to 8%.
Inditex CEO Oscar Garcia Maceiras said constantly changing news on tariffs and geopolitics was making it difficult to make long-term predictions, the latest business leader to highlight the impact of uncertainty as U.S. President Donald Trump overhauls trade and foreign policy.
Inditex sales were up just 4% in currency-neutral terms over the Feb. 1 to March 10 period, compared to 11% growth a year ago. Sales will have to accelerate significantly to meet analysts’ forecast of 8.8% growth for the first quarter, Bernstein analyst William Woods said.
This was Inditex’s weakest current trading update since 2016, setting aside the pandemic years, UBS analysts said.
Inditex gave no reason for the slower growth, but businesses have warned of weaker demand, particularly in the United States, Inditex’s second-biggest market by sales after Spain.
“We live in an uncertain environment, an environment in which it is, logically, our obligation to monitor every piece of news that is produced. And throughout the course of a single day, contradictory news stories sometimes appear, making it difficult to make very long-term predictions,” Garcia Maceiras said in a press conference at Inditex headquarters in Arteixo, northern Spain.
