Fashion retailer Primark opened its 450th shop in Orlando, Florida on Friday, its 26th outlet in the US.
The brand’s 27th, in Auburn Hills, Michigan, will open on September 12th this year, spanning 36,600 sq ft.
Known as Penneys in Ireland, it coincides with the 55th anniversary of when founder Arthur Ryan opened the brand’s first shop on Mary Street in Dublin in 1969.
The Orlando shop is 36,200 sq ft and spans across two floors of The Florida Mall. It is also close to the resort at Walt Disney.
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Primark chief executive Paul Marchant said it was an “exciting time” for the company and that he hoped people who decide to come on holiday to Orlando would visit the new store.
“On one side of the Atlantic we’ve opened our 26th US store in Orlando Florida, which is our 450th globally, while on the other we’re celebrating 55 years of Penneys in Ireland,” he said.
Some 107,000 Irish tourists go to Orlando each year, according to Visit Orlando figures from 2023, making it the third most popular destination for Irish tourists.
The brand opened its first store in the United States in Bosten, Massachusetts in September 2015.
Primark has opened 11 stores across Europe and the US so far this year including one in Budapest earlier in the summer, the brand’s 17th international market.
Primark employs more than 80,000 people in 17 countries across both the US and Europe. In the company’s annual report for 2022/2023, it declared £9,008 million in revenue in 2023 and a £735 million adjusted operating profit for the same year.
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