Zara owner Inditex has today reported third-quarter profit below analysts' expectations due to currency effects.
But the world's largest clothing retailer, maintained sales and margin guidance for the rest of the year.
Inditex, which also owns upmarket label Massimo Dutti and teen brand Bershka, reported earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) of €3.07 billion, up 3% on the same time last year.
The growth would have been 14% at constant exchange rates, the company said.
Inditex, with stores from China to Russia, is highly sensitive to exchange rates.
Controlled by founder Amancio Ortega, the group generates more than half of its sales in currencies other than the euro and then books those sales in euros when reporting results.
However, its centralised sourcing and distribution model means a large chunk of its costs are in euros.
Inditex, which launched online sales for Zara in 106 new markets last month, said it had not had to cut clothing prices from September like rivals, resulting in gross margin growth of 108 basis points during the third quarter.
Analysts said however the group had missed profit estimates in the period. Third quarter EBIT of €1.29 billion was 4% less than consensus, they said.
The company said its like-for-like sales in the second half of 2018 to the end of November grew 3% after a good start to the season and an extraordinarily warm September.
Inditex is known for whisking catwalk looks into stores in a matter of weeks and instead of refreshing its stock seasonally like traditional clothing retailers, it regularly drops fresh looks into its physical and online stores.
The group said in September it expected like-for-like sales growth of 4-6% over the second half of its financial year.
