"It is an interesting market with a large, young and fashion-conscious population", chief executive Karl-Johan Persson said.

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Swedish Hennes & Mauritz, Europe’s second- largest clothing retailer, has signed a contract to open its first store in Turkey, it said Tuesday.

"We are very pleased to open our first store in Turkey. It is an interesting market with a large, young and fashion-conscious population, which offers great potential for future expansion" said Karl-Johan Persson, chief executive officer of H&M;, who took the helm of his family’s business in July last year.

The store will be located in one of the largest shopping centres in Turkey, Forum Istanbul, with a sales area of approximately 2,300 square metres. Opening is planned for November this year.

Today the H&M; Group has around 2,000 stores in 37 markets.

None of H&M;’s 2,000 stores are south of the equator. But in an Bloomberg interview Karl-Johan Persson recently said the company is looking at opening its first store in the southern hemisphere to tap emerging-market growth.

“Brazil and Argentina are very interesting”, he said, adding that he’s also looked at Australia.

The fashion giant's net profit in its first fiscal quarter swelled 42 percent to 3.7 billion kronor ($511 million) and the second quarter started on a bullish note. It opened ten new stores worldwide during the first quarter, including in Seoul, South Korea, while six stores were closed.

The H&M; share price rose in opening trade Tuesday, following a 9 percent fall during the last month. Since the turn of the year stocks are up 12 percent.