General information: H&M Group reaches fashion lovers across the globe and has come a long way since the first Hennes store opened in the Swedish city Vasteras back in 1947. The H&M group consists of many brands (H&M, COS, Weekday, Cheap Monday, Monki, H&M HOME, & Other Stories, ARKET, AFound) but the core of what we stand for and offer as an employer is the same. Brand expansion: As of November 2019, H&M operates in 74 countries with over 5,000 stores under the various company brands, with 126,000 full-time equivalent positions. It is the second-largest global clothing retailer, behind Spain-based Inditex (parent company of Zara). The pandemic has accelerated the already ongoing transformation of the industry, with increased digitalisation that has rapidly changed customers' behaviour. The current situation has changed the preconditions for, among other things, rental terms for stores. The H&M group is continuing to renegotiate a large number of leases as part of the company's intensified store optimisation, which also involves rebuilds and adjustment of the number of stores and of store space to ensure the best store portfolio in each market. The H&M group's contracts allow around a third of leases to be renegotiated or exited each year. Most of the openings will be in growth markets, while the closures will mainly be in established markets. The first H&M store in Panama opened successfully in September via franchise. In autumn 2021 Monki will launch on the e-commerce platform Zalora in the Philippines and & Other Stories will launch on Nordstrom in the US. H&M online will launch in Chile during autumn 2021 and in Peru, Colombia and Uruguay in the first half of 2022. In 2022 H&M will launch in five new markets: the brand's first stores will open in Ecuador, North Macedonia and Kosovo, and via franchise in Costa Rica and Cambodia. COS plans to launch online in Australia at the start of 2022. Supply chain Having strong, long-term relations with H&M suppliers that are based on mutual trust and transparency is a priority at H&M Group. This is something H&M are committed to and have always worked hard to achieve. As a result H&M have been disclosing H&M supplier list since 2013. H&M supplier list shares the details of H&M tier 1 suppliers and their manufacturing and processing factories accounting for 100% of the products H&M sell across H&M brands. As active participants of the Transparency Pledge H&M disclose details including the name, location, product type produced and number of workers employed by each supplier. The list also includes the names and locations of Tier 2 mills involved in making the majority of H&M product volume (70%). These 291 mills provide H&M suppliers with fabrics and yarns, including spinning, tanneries and fabric dyeing and printing. By the end of 2021 H&M aim to disclose 100% of the fabric dyeing and printing locations involve in making H&M products. The supplier information displayed on H&M list is updated monthly. When business needs occur, H&M onboard new suppliers or factories and occasionally H&M responsibly phase them out. Such changes will be reflected in the forthcoming update of the supplier list.FUNDAMENTAL ECONOMIC QUESTIONS H&M supply chain in numbers H&M do business with over 700 commercial product suppliers who manufacture products for H&M brands in over 1600 tier 1 factories in Europe, Asia and Africa. China and Bangladesh are the largest production markets for clothing. The European Union is the largest production market for H&M beauty assortment. . . 6 years is the global average length of H&M relationship with a supplier since 2006*, but some has been doing business with us for over 25 years. 1.56 million people are employed by the supplier factories H&M work with, 63% are women. . H&M operate 20 local production offices, employing 3000 colleagues who work daily with H&M suppliers. 150 of these colleagues are sustainability experts and developers. Number of suppliers and factories of the H&M Group as of January 2021, by country China 239 579 818 Bangladesh 129 241 370 India 70 185 Turkey 50 185 235 32 76 Indonesia 65 re banjod 20 57 Vietnam 31 42 73 Myanmar 28 43 71 Pakistan 330 43 Cambodia 134 France Romania Sweden Poland 1915