Swedish fashion retail giant Hennes & Mauritz strong trend in the second quarter. The company reported a healthy increase in total sales and an increase in profit over the same period of last year, which was higher than expected. However, same-store sales declined slightly, and due to currency hedging, gross profit margin declined. Swedish fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz reported on Wednesday that its June same-store sales had fallen less-than-expected. This shows that despite the initial signs of recovery from the economic downturn, the situation remains grim. H & M, the world's third-largest fashion house after Gap and Spain's Inditex Group, saw comparable sales fall 5% in June. Total sales including new store sales increased 4% over the same period. May sales figures show a somewhat disappointing month compared with last year's strong performance. As of May 31 this quarter, H & M's strong sales rose 23% to 26 billion Swedish kronor (3.37 billion US dollars). Although reduced to 8% when converted into local currency due to currency hedging. Same-store sales fell 2% in the quarter. Profit before tax rose 6% to NOK 5.78 billion, higher than the 5.67 billion kronor previously estimated by Reuters. Net profit was 4.19 billion kroner, up from 3.94 billion kronor last year. In the first half, H & M's sales increased 21%. Pre-tax profit fell 2% to 6.77 billion kroner and last year's pretax profit was 6.88 billion kroner. After maintaining strong growth, H & M will continue its global expansion plan this year with 93 new stores and 9 closed in the first half of this year. As of the end of June, H & M operated 1,827 stores, up from 1,600 a year ago.