H&M is pushing ahead with an aggressive expansion drive, with plans to open 400 new stores this year, including forays into India, Peru, South Africa and Taiwan.

H&M opened 379 outlets last year, more than a store a day, including in Manila in the Philippines.

Most of the new stores will be in China and the US, but also in other large markets such as Poland and Germany.

The Swedish clothing group is the world’s second-largest fashion retailer, after the Spanish Inditex group, owner of Zara.

It opened online stores in France, Italy, Spain and China, and will do the same in nine other countries this year, mostly in eastern Europe but also in Belgium, Switzerland and Portugal.

H&M posted pretax profits of 7.8bn Swedish kronor (£627m) in the three months to the end of November, its fourth quarter.

This was up from SEK7.26bn a year earlier, but below market forecasts of SEK7.96bn. Sales rose 14% in local currencies to SEK 176.6bn. Sales in December and January were up 15% and 14% respectively.

The retailer is also broadening its product ranges, launching H&M Sport a year ago, followed by an expanded shoe range in the autumn.

H&M’s first wedding dress went on sale last March for £59.99. A beauty range is slated for this autumn.

Alexander Wang became the latest designer to create a high street collection for H&M in November, after Karl Lagerfeld, Donatella Versace and Stella McCartney. Shoppers started queuing at 11pm the night before it went on sale at H&M’s Oxford Street flagship store in London.

H&M, which employs over 132,000 people at 3,511 stores in 55 countries, said 2015 had got off to a good start, but warned that the “increasingly expensive US dollar will affect our sourcing costs”.