Takeshi Okazaki, chief financial officer of Japanese clothing giant Fast Retailing (Fast Retailing Group), said in an interview with the Japanese Economic News earlier that it would adjust the store strategy of its flagship brand Uniqlo in the Chinese market.
Okazaki said the company’s goal is for Uniqlo’s stores in Greater China to have average sales comparable to those in Japan in 10 years.

To this end, Fast Retailing Group in the next 2 to 3 years, will close the unprofitable stores in Greater China, the location of the new store is concentrated in high passenger flow areas and prime locations, in small cities will also be strictly selected to open profitable stores.
Under the current plan, Uniqlo will open 80 stores in the Greater China market in the fiscal year ending August 2024, while closing 50 stores and adding 30 net stores. Through August 2025 and beyond “the possibility of low net store growth cannot be ruled out.”
In addition, e-commerce will be another major entry point. E-commerce accounts for 20 percent of sales in China, compared with 15 percent in Japan. Fast Retailing distributes e-commerce orders not only from warehouses, but also from stores. “In the Chinese mainland market, stores with e-commerce warehouse functions will play a big role.” “There are synergies to be had by opening stores in places with a lot of ecommerce users.”
Okazaki Ken said that the reason for adjusting the store strategy is mainly the lack of profitability of stores, and “quite a few stores do not have the ability to present brand power.” The brand originally planned to open 100 stores per year in third-tier and above cities in China, but in the fiscal year ending August 2023, the average annual sales per store, including e-commerce, fell 3% compared with the same period in 2019.
In the future, the brand will switch from the previous “heavy quantity” model to “heavy quality”, close unprofitable stores, open stores in better locations, improve the profitability of single stores, and stabilize the growth base. Although Uniqlo has more than 1,000 stores in China, ranking first in the world, sales are still less than in its home market of Japan.
For the fiscal year ended August 30, 2023, UNIQLO:
The Japanese market sales of 890.4 billion yen, operating profit of 117.8 billion yen, the number of stores 800

Although the number of stores has exceeded that of Japan, the Greater China market accounted for 26.6% of the total sales of the brand, and Japan accounted for more than 38%. Including e-commerce, the average annual sales of stores in the Greater China market are 600 million yen (about 29 million yuan) and 1.1 billion yen (about 53 million yuan) in Japan.
In addition, Uniqlo carried out a salary increase plan in China in October last year, and the highest salary increase of employees was 44%, and the average increase was 28%.
In the first quarter of fiscal year 2024 ending November 2023, Fast Retailing Group sales increased 13% year-on-year to 810.8 billion yen, and net profit increased 27% year-on-year to 107.8 billion yen. Benefiting from the recovery of the Chinese market, Uniqlo’s sales in overseas markets increased by 23% year-on-year.