El Corte Inglés partners with Almacenes Siman to take Sfera fashion chain to Central America

El Corte Inglés enters Central America. The Spanish company gives one more step towards internationalisation and signs an alliance with a new partner in Latin America to take its fashion chain Sfera to the region.

Concretely, El Corte Inglés has introduced its women’s apparel chain in three Central American countries in partnership with Almacenes Siman. The department stores chain from El Salvador is the partner of Inditex in some markets from the region too.

The first points of sale of Sfera are located in Costa Rica, El Salvador and Guatemala. The company has opened in the stores that Siman owns inside the shopping centres of Escazú, La Gran Vía and Miraflores, in the localities of San José, San Salvador and Guatemala City, respectively.

El Corte Inglés has started to operate with Sfera in three Siman stores in Costa Rica, El Salvador and Guatemala

Almacenes Siman, having on its back a century of history, has become one of the biggest department store players in Central America. The company is present in El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Guatemala.

Alsicorp, owner of Almacenes Siman and Prismamoda, is also an Inditex partner in several markets of the region. The group manages the 48 franchises that the Spanish leviathan owns in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Honduras.

Through these openings, Sfera expands its mark in Latin America. The company operates with a sales network of more than thirty stores located in the Mexican market, besides being also present in Colombia, Chile and Peru.

Alsicorp, owner of Almacenes Siman, has a partnership with Inditex in five Central American markets

The strategy of El Corte Inglés for the conquest of Latin America has been supported by these partnerships with local department stores, as it happened in the case of Chile and Peru, where it operates hand in hand with Ripley and Oechsle, respectively.

Recently, El Corte Inglés reinforced its alliance in Peru with Intercorp, owner of the Oehsle department stores. Since then, Sfera has opened one point of sale up in the shopping centre Real Plaza Centro Cívico, in Lima.

Parallelly to the expansion in Central America, Sfera has carried out a new store opening in Mexico, its main market in Latin America by number of stores. The point of sale can be found inside the shopping centre Galerías Mall Sonora.

Sfera accumulates six years of profits, ending 2017 with a rise of 27%

Besides Latin America, Sfera has also broadened its presence in Europe and the Middle East. The chain has been one of El Corte Inglés’ spearheads for the last years, earning black numbers ever since 2011.+

Sfera ended fiscal 2017 with a volume of business valued in 270.9 million euros, 9.4% more than last year. The gross operating profit (ebtida), for its part, boosted up until reaching the figure of 40.79 million euros.

El Corte Inglés scored a revenue of 15.93 billion euros during fiscal year 2017, 2.8% above the previous year. The net profit of the department stores group was promoted a 35%, materializing in 202 million euros.