Spanish retail group Inditex SA owns Zara—a towering name in global fashion retail. Besides Zara, the group has seven more retail formats—Zara Home, Pull & Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho and Uterqüe—together selling their collections through an integrated offline-online store network. As of 2018, Inditex has a network of 7,490 stores in 96 markets and sells fashion online in 156 markets. The group has a highly diverse employee force of over 174,000 people from 154 nationalities who speak 73 different languages. Inditex reported net sale of €26.15 billion (₹2,063.10 billion) during FY2018 with Zara contributing close to 70 per cent of the total sales.

Zara Global

Of the group’s €26.15 billion net sale, Zara contributed €18 billion (₹1,422.04 billion) in FY2018 growing at 3.3 per cent over the previous year though it grew at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 8.2 per cent for the past five years (from 2014 to 2018), contributing an average of 68.5 per cent to the group’s sale. As of 2018, Zara globally operates network of 2,862 stores spread across the Americas, Asia, Europe and other parts of the world. Its global store expansion has grown at a CAGR of 6.5 per cent. Zara, being the flagship brand of Inditex, has an immense impact on the group’s performance. New stores opened by Inditex in 2018 became 39 per cent larger than those in 2012 because the average size of Zara stores increased by 50 per cent during the same period. Zara reported an EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) of €3.120 billion (₹246.20 billion) in 2017 (17.8 per cent of sales) which grew marginally in value terms to €3.122 billion (₹246.36 billion) in 2018 (17.3 per cent of sales).