H&M Adds Stores in Smaller China Cities as Competition Rises

Hennes & Mauritz AB, Europe’s second-biggest clothing retailer, is expanding into China’s smaller cities to woo more customers as retail competition intensifies.

The company, based in Stockholm, is also looking at having clothes made in Myanmar, Ethiopia and Kenya as rising wages in China, its biggest supply market, put pressure on profit margins, Chief Executive Officer Karl-Johan Persson said today in a telephone interview from Melbourne, where the company is opening its first Australian store.