Dive Brief:

• H&M said Wednesday the company is aggressively adding physical stores worldwide, with plans to open 425 stores by November and even more beyond that. CEO Karl-Johan Persson told Bloomberg that he thinks the retailer could hit 7,000 to 8,000 stores in the future.

• The retailer also said it’s “very profitable” in web sales, with e-commerce now available in seven more countries and plans to add 11 more, for a total of 34 markets by year’s end. The company doesn’t report web sales separately.

• The news came as the retailer reported quarterly earnings. H&M's net profit slid 30%, hit hard by a strong dollar that made its Asia-sourced apparel more expensive to produce and a warm winter that left much apparel on racks, forcing discounts. First quarter sales increased to 43.7 billion kronor (excluding value-added tax), from 40.3 billion kronor.

Dive Insight:

H&M is not letting the strong dollar slow things down, and it’s not letting its online expansion deter its physical store growth, either.

The fast-fashion retailer doesn’t report its web sales and physical store sales separately, and that reflects its attitude toward e-commerce. Online order returns are allowed in stores, and Persson told Bloomberg that the retailer’s “lines will be blurry.”

H&M's report also said that it’s benefiting from having a stable of brands, and that it plans to introduce more lines.

“Our new brands—COS, & Other Stories, Monki, Weekday och Cheap Monday—represent an increasingly important part of the group and we are looking forward to launching more new brands further ahead,” Persson said in a statement.

The retailer seems to be trying to catch up to the innovator in the flash-sales space, Spanish Zara parent Inditex, which itself has more than 7,000 stores and has begun to prioritize its e-commerce operations over further store expansion. That retailer has escaped a beating from the strong dollar because it sources its apparel in Europe.

Persson told Bloomberg that the company is unfazed by that competition, or by Amazon’s recent moves into apparel.

“I’m a huge admirer of Amazon,” Persson told the news service. “H&M and many other companies will bring something different to the fashion world, and I think we can fare well, as we have shown.”

The company in its report also said that it’s increasing its commitment to sustainability, something that could be challenged by such a massive increase in physical stores and e-commerce.