UNIQLO'S Overseas Sales Exceed Its Domestic Focus Still In Asia.

"Do you mind buying UNIQLO?" this was a question asked by a 20 year old Japanese youth in a street interview on television in 2004.

To this question, the young man replied, "if it's underwear or socks, I don't mind wearing UNIQLO."

In other words, the clothes he wears outside is absolutely not considered.

At that time, the impression of UNIQLO was probably cheap, earth, no sense of fashion and "casual wear."

But 15 years later, all of this has changed radically. UNIQLO has gained rapid development in the global market, especially in the Chinese market.

With the release of a record 2019 fiscal year end result by the fast retailing group of UNIQLO, investors have completely forgotten the downturn of the Japanese fashion giant, UNIQLO.

Overseas markets become main force

Recently, the fast selling group (UNIQLO parent company) announced the first half of fiscal year 2019 as of February 28th.

According to the data released in the report, the first half of the year, consolidated income, operating profit, pre tax profit and the profit attributable to the parent company all hit a record high in recent years.

The report shows that XXX group's total sales in the first half of 2019 increased 6.8% to 1 trillion and 270 billion yen (76 billion 300 million yuan), gross profit margin was 47.9%, operating profit increased 1.4% to 172 billion 900 million yen, net profit increased by nearly two digit, and recorded 9.5% to 114 billion yen (about 6 billion 800 million yuan), a record high.

It is worth noting that UNIQLO's overseas sales revenue exceeds its home market.

During the reporting period, the growth rate of UNIQLO's international business increased by 14.3%, from 507 billion 456 million yen to 580 billion 6 million yen, which was the main driving force of the group's revenue growth; operating profit increased 9.6%, from 80 billion 763 million yen to 88 billion 486 million yen, and 15.3% of the operating profit rate was the first time higher than Japan UNIQLO.

Japan's UNIQLO business profit margin in the first half of 13.8%, down 420 basis points year-on-year, operating profit plummeted 23.7% to 67 billion 741 million yen, 2018 yen in the same period was 88 billion 729 million yen.

XXX has also lowered its annual performance target for 2019 fiscal year.

In the first half of the year, the Greater China market recorded double-digit revenue growth, of which mainland China's market revenue and profits recorded an increase of about 20%. The second largest international markets in East Asia, Korea's market revenues and profits also increased.

The Southeast Asian market and Oceania market, which were developed by UNIQLO in recent years, were stimulated by the surging sales of the same stores, and their incomes and profits grew rapidly.

Both the first quarter results and the medium-term results released show that the profitability of the fast selling group's unstable Japanese market is no longer the key factor affecting the final performance of the company. In the three quarter of 2018 fiscal year, China has become the first determinant of the largest apparel retailer in Asia after its first international profit surpassing the mainland.

The sales and sales in China will not drop, and the company can achieve the goal of 1000 stores in mainland China in the 2021 fiscal year, according to its founder and CEO willow.

By the end of March this year, UNIQLO operated 767 stores in China, compared with 825 stores in Japan, and 1311 other overseas markets.

In addition, UNIQLO will also open stores in Asia and Oceania outside China and South Korea. It plans to increase the number of stores in these areas to 2.5 times in 2017, reaching 400 by 2022 fiscal year.

After so many years of development, today's UNIQLO is no longer what it used to be.

It not only opened the store to many countries around the world, but Ryui Masa's personal wealth also returned to the top for the first time since 2016.

This year, Liu Jing is winning the fortune of Japan by beating Softbank Sun Zhengyi for $24 billion 900 million.

And according to the data, Ryui Masa's wealth has increased by 5 billion 600 million US dollars in the past year.

The focus is still on Asia.

As the world's third largest clothing retailer, UNIQLO's goal is to surpass Zara and H&M and become world champions.

Ryui Masa hopes to become the largest clothing retailer in the world by becoming the first private brand clothing store in Asia.

Thanks to Liu well's attention to infrastructure and innovation technology, UNIQLO is still attacking the Asian market.

Ryui Masa said: "Asia is now the engine of business growth", and millions of consumers in Asia are entering the middle class.

This year, UNIQLO will open its first branch in India and is considering expanding the market to Vietnam and other countries (UNIQLO has online stores in Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand).

The economist's article points out that China is a solid foothold for UNIQLO in Asia, and Chinese stores account for more than 1/2 of its total overseas stores.

Especially in 2018, China's revenue accounted for about 70% of its total international revenue.

Many people are surprised that it is not easy to stand in China. At least in the clothing industry, Chinese consumers tend to advocate brand.

However, even those who are obsessed with brands often need simple matching for dress coordination.

Chinese consumers pursue quality, and when more and more fast fashion brands are criticized for their quality problems, UNIQLO's cost performance becomes the biggest advantage.

Especially some UNIQLO's special fabrics, such as Heattech thermal clothing series and light down garments.

In addition, more importantly, analysts pointed out that UNIQLO has a number of Chinese managers who have been educated in Japan. They are very knowledgeable about their business and are well versed in the different business cultures of the two countries.

Although UNIQLO has been very successful in the Chinese market, the economist thinks that the market in other Asian countries may be more difficult to capture, because the warm climate in some countries means that UNIQLO can not rely on winter products as the main selling force.

Saito Takako Saito, a fashion retailing analyst who once wrote books at UNIQLO and Zara, said UNIQLO had to pform its product plan, but it was risky.

Ryui Masa said that the wave of anti globalization is the biggest risk facing UNIQLO Asian expansion plan. The free movement of goods and personnel will be limited, thus disrupting the supply chain and labor force.

But he believes he can lead the pformation needed by UNIQLO.

He also talked about plans to expand the footwear and skirt product line - UNIQLO currently has only a small number of such products.

The economist said that at present, UNIQLO's performance in Europe and America is not so bright.

Saito Takako said that most of the reasons were attributed to the same model of local enterprises, such as GAP.

But UNIQLO has not given up the search for a way out in the big cities of the East and west coastal areas of the United States, and has worked hard to publicize its own brand concept. Its well planned cooperation with Roger Federer and other designers such as Jill Sander Jil Sander has achieved initial success.

In order to achieve the goal of "the world's first apparel retailer" faster, xinfun group said it will continue to expand its entity store network and consolidate its position as the world's leading brand by opening global flagship stores and large stores in major cities.

What does UNIQLO win?

According to the fortune magazine, the average life expectancy of SMEs in the United States is less than 7 years, and the average life expectancy of large enterprises is less than 40 years.

UNIQLO had been established in 1984, and it has been through 35 years of UNIQLO to maintain such a performance. What is it relying on?

The economist's article reads: when the founder of the UNIQLO and CEO willow is asked what is the vision of UNIQLO, he picked up the autumn and winter fashion catalog released by British fashion retailer Next in 1987 from the bookshelf.

He said that all clothing in the catalog is classic, and is not out of date now.

While Spain's INDITEX (its Zara brand) and Swiss H&M's two fashion retail giants are blindly following the trend, UNIQLO has consistently stuck to the basic style of crossing the clock.

As early as 2005, UNIQLO suffered a sales crisis.

Ryui Masa made adjustments to the brand positioning, which runs counter to the direction of fast selling fashion brands to strengthen fast fashion. UNIQLO began to pay more attention to the functionality of clothing, and sold the "clothes everyone needs" for the purpose, and embarked on a basic, practical and personalized way of development.

Apart from being practical, the price performance ratio is another trump card of UNIQLO in the fast fashion circle.

In addition to its success as a clothing company, UNIQLO's success has been attributed to its "technology" company specializing in improving clothing production technology.

UNIQLO's fabrics are always rich, and there are many exclusive materials, such as Heattech heating series and AIRism sweat absorption and quick drying series.

While at the same time, it also did not forget to attract consumers' eye with fashion.

Some people in the industry pointed out that the "fast fashion textbook" in the first 5 years is still Zara, which now seems to have shifted to the head of UNIQLO.

While specializing in high-tech new retail outlets, UNIQLO is speeding up the invasion of the market by grabbing a series of speakers.

Its annual joint venture with different designers is very popular. It has been co operating with Christopher Lemerre Christophe Lemaire, the former design director of Herm s, to the current Uniqlo U series, and then to the series of cooperation with Anderson, the creative director of Roy Wei (Loewe), every time it can trigger a queuing rush.

The move is to capture the psychology of Hua Xiaoqian, a famous designer, in designing products.

This strategy is read by an article from the BoF fashion business review website.

The article introduces this marketing method called "Premium Mediocre", which was first put forward by commercial writer and consultant Venkatesh Rao (Venkatesh Rao).

"Quality mediocrity" means that, in a few simple ways, just like the halo of luxury goods, like the bread flour, it spreads to the general merchandise a little bit, so that consumers think they are consuming luxury goods.

But in fact, they only consume ordinary goods and have nothing to do with luxuries.

The marketing method of "quality and mediocrity" is not new in the fashion industry, but its popularity is amazing.

The reason why "quality mediocrity" is so popular is that people prefer consumer experience rather than merchandise nowadays. Secondly, fashion democratization in the age of social media. Many designers and brands want everyone to enjoy their own designs. Third, the idea of "treating yourself kindly" is being accepted and practiced by more and more people, and the practice of saving money for buying something is out of date.

XXX announced the first half of fiscal year 2019 as of February 28th.

According to the data released in the report, the first half of the year, consolidated income, operating profit, pre tax profit and the profit attributable to the parent company all hit a record high in recent years.