Inditex, the owner of Zara and Massimo Dutti, has released its first-quarter financial result. It is reported that the company faced a net loss of 409 million euros due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

According to CNBC, the loss for the period from February to April included a provision of 308 million euros for its store optimization program, which will continue until 2021. The company also reported that the sales for the January to March period fell to 3.3 billion euros from 6 billion euros. Last year, in the first quarter, the company saw a net profit of €734 million. Meanwhile, online sales increased by 50 per cent in the three months, along with a gain of 95 per cent in April.

During the first quarter, most countries in which the company’s brands were present had been imposed restrictions on the operations of store. They also mentioned that since the beginning of May, most economies under lockdown started opening up slowly with strict social distancing measures.

Inditex plans to invest 1 billion euros to grow their online presence and another 1.7 billion euros in upgrading its store platforms.