Harvey Norman defies the retail slowdown with a 9% sales lift, driven by booming growth in Slovenia, Croatia and the UK.
Background: Harvey Norman is the Australian retail giant that sells practically everything - from lounges and dining tables to laptops, dishwashers and giant TVs.
What happened: Despite a wider retail slowdown, Harvey Norman reported a 9% sales lift from July through November compared with last year.
What else: The surprisingly strong growth didn’t come from Australia, but from Harvey Norman’s international stores, with sales jumping 25% in Slovenia and Croatia and 22% in the UK.
What's the key learning?
💡Global diversification can become a powerful buffer for retailers especially when different regions move through economic cycles at different speeds.
💡Harvey Norman’s latest update showed its international stores smashing local performance, helping smooth out softer periods in Australia - which is exactly why investors value a resilient global mix. In fact, the company’s share price is already up more than 40% this year.
💡Not every overseas push is a guaranteed win. Smiggle’s global expansion, for example, has stumbled, with sales falling 10.7% last financial year... a reminder that timing and execution are everything when turning global strategy into a real profit engine.
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