Primark owns over 370 stores across 12 countries.

[4]
The company's first store, still in operation, was opened in June 1969 on 47 Mary
Street, Dublin under the Penneys brand, which continues to be the company's trading name in
the Republic of Ireland to this day.[3][8]
Penneys opened its first store in Northern Ireland in 1971, with a large store in Belfast City
Centre.
The company opened its first store outside of the island of Ireland in Derby, England, in 1973,
under the new Primark brand.[9]
The company expanded rapidly in the UK in the mid-2000s. In 2005, it bought
the Littlewoods retail stores for £409m, retaining 40 of the 119 stores and selling the rest. [20]
In May 2006, the first Primark store in mainland Europe opened in Madrid, Spain. In December
2008, Primark opened in the Netherlands, followed by Portugal, Germany and Belgium in 2009.
Primark opened its first store in Austria on 27 September 2012, in Innsbruck. It expanded to
France in 2013, in Marseille.[21] The first Italian store opened in 2014. [22]
In 2015, Primark opened its first United States store in Downtown Crossing, Boston, in the
location that was once the flagship store of Filene's,[23] later New York City, Philadelphia,
and Danbury.
After 10 years of constructing a chain of around 40 stores in Spain, Primark opened another store
in Madrid in October 2015, the second biggest in the chain. [24] In July 2018, it was revealed that
Primark was entering Poland.[25] The largest Primark store opened in Birmingham on 11 April
2019, occupying the former Pavilions Shopping Centre of 161,000 sqft. On 13 June 2019 Primark
expanded to Slovenia with a store in Ljubljana. It has signed a lease for its first stores in Warsaw,
Poland, Prague, the Czech Republic, and Bratislava, Slovakia.
In July 2019, Primark announced its U.S. market expansion to Chicago with a three-level 45,000
square foot flagship location on State Street.[26] The location is scheduled to open in 2020 and will
be its first store in the U.S. Midwest.
On 23 March 2020, the company announced that they would be closing their 189 UK stores until
further notice, as demand dropped as a result of social distancing during the COVID-19 outbreak.
[27]
 The chain's 153 stores in England re-opened on 15 June 2020. [28] As a result of the lockdown.
the company reported a sales loss of £430 million. [29]
In December 2020, Primark said it will lose an additional £220m in sales as more stores are
forced to close under new restrictions to control the spread of COVID-19 in the UK. [30]