The stock price of Torrid Holdings Inc. has been on an upswing of late.

The City of Industry apparel manufacturer for plus size women has seen its share price gain 205% in value in the 52-week period between July 31 of last year, when it closed at $2.72, and the same day this year when it closed at $8.30.

In mid-June, the stock got a modest boost after the company released its fiscal first quarter earnings, even though they were mixed.

On June 12, the stock closed at $6.60 and then increased by nearly 1% to close at $6.65 the following day. After trading closed, the company reported on June 12 a net income of $12.2 million (12 cents a share) for the quarter ending May 4, a slight increase from the net income of $11.8 million (11 cents) in the same period the previous year. Revenue decreased by nearly 5% from the first quarter of the prior year to $280 million.

The stock saw its highest closing price of the past 52 weeks on July 16 when it reached $8.95 – an increase in value of almost 628% from Sept. 13, when it hit its lowest closing price of $1.23.

The share price closed at $7.98 on Aug. 1.

Lisa Harper, the chief executive of Torrid, said in a conference call with analysts from June 12 that first-quarter results reflected continued progress on its key initiatives.

In stores, the company saw traffic trends improve as it moved through the quarter, she said.

“Customers responded to our balanced merchandise assortment both in terms of breadth of styles as well as price points,” Harper said.

The company was pleased with the response to its spring collections, which reflect a better balance of casual and dressy styles, she continued.

In addition to balancing its product assortments, Torrid improved its pricing of its collections as it offered more opening price points across categories, she said.

“As part of our efforts to evolve and enhance our assortment, we recently visited our factories in Asia,” Harper said. “We worked with our key factories to source new fabrications for Torrid to position us to get back into the chase and react model that we are known for. More to come on this in the future.”

Paula Dempsey, the chief financial officer, said that Torrid’s solid first-quarter results highlight the ongoing improvements across the business.

“This year our priorities have not changed and include expanding margins, making strategic investments in technology and our workforce and delivering strong working capital results,” Dempsey said.

During the call, Corey Tarlowe, a senior equity analyst with Jefferies LLC in New York, asked about the store reevaluations that Torrid is embarking on.

“I was curious to get your perspective as to what some of the early reads of that are, what the reasoning behind it is, and what your expectations are for the store fleet as you think about driving growth or just profitability there,” Tarlowe said.

Harper said 65% of stores are in malls and 35% are in outdoor lifestyle centers or strip malls. Torrid wants to move that to an even split.

“We do, as I mentioned, believe that there’s an opportunity to shift somewhat to … an even mix between mall and strip. Our strips deliver higher EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) margins of about, I would say, 500 basis points and with higher sales,” Harper said.

“And so we just think it’s more of an overall fleet evaluation with the opportunity to focus on the enterprise experience for the customer, as well as shifting her to where she’s choosing to shop more often now, which is in the strip, the outdoor center environment,” she added. “And that’s really all it is.”

Torrid had 658 stores as of the end of the first quarter and planned on opening 15 to 20 new stores during the full fiscal year and closing 10 to 15 stores.

In Los Angeles County, there are stores in Glendale, Northridge, West Covina and Valencia, among other locations.