By Corina Pons
BARCELONA (Reuters) - Spanish fashion retailer Mango's sales hit a record 2.68 billion euros ($2.8 billion) last year, exceeding pre-pandemic levels by 13% as shoppers kept spending on clothing amid high inflation and as the company expanded in the United States and India.
"We capitalised on the end of the (COVID) restrictions and the return to normality last year with a push for new shops," Toni Ruiz, the CEO of the privately owned retailer, told a news conference.
Revenue at Mango, which is a rival of Spanish Inditex-owned label Zara, rose 20% from a year earlier, with both in-store and online sales benefitting from consumers' post-pandemic appetite for clothes, despite tough competition in the apparel business.
Its net profit rose 21% to 81 million euros ($85.66 million).
Mango began to increase its presence in India and opened a flagship store in New York in May, one of nine new shops opened in the United States last year and of 119 outlets in all its markets.
"The United States is a great market and should become one of our top five very quickly," Ruiz added. It will expand the number of U.S. stores to 40 by 2024.
In 2023, Mango is planning to open 35 new stores in India, its leading market in Asia where it will have 110 outlets.
Last year Mango started to transfer the 55 shops it was directly operating in Russia, which is under Western sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine, to local partners.
While 30 shops permanently closed, Mango said it remained present in 90 stores in Russia under franchise agreements.
The company has 2,566 outlets worldwide and expects to open more shops in 2023 than last year, but only a third will be company-owned.
Mango, which has lately pushed to produce more in nearby countries such as Turkey, said most of its suppliers were not affected by the Feb. 6 earthquake.
($1 = 0.9456 euros)