Associated British Foods retail division
Primark is owned by the British food processing company Associated British Foods (ABF). In its 2021 annual report, ABF reported that its retail subsidiary had generated a revenue worldwide of 5.6 billion British pounds that year, which was a staggering decline compared to revenue generated in the pre-pandemic period. Accordingly, the company's growth rate in sales was greatly impacted, with 2020 marking a sales decline of 24 percent. In addition to the pandemic, the main reason behind Primark's poor sales performance was the lack of online sales channel. Primark trades solely as an in-store retailer.Primark's performance in its primary market
Despite the negative sales performance in 2020 and 2021, the net worth of Primark in the UK, its primary market, did not suffer as much. Over the past decade, Primark’s net worth has seen consistent improvement, with stores in the country reaching a net worth of over one billion pounds in 2019. In 2020, this figure slightly decline, but still remained over the one billion mark. For comparison, this represented an increase of almost 250 million pounds on the company’s net worth in 2016.Among the clothing products offered by Primark, women's wear is the most popular category, with 11.1 million consumers in 2020. In comparison, men’s wear and children’s clothes were purchased by a respective 10.3 and 6.1 people that year.
