Sunday, 20 July 2014

Japan's Uniqlo enters India

Uniqlo is a Japanese casual wear designer, manufacturer, and retailer. The company is a fast retailing chain of Japan. Uniqlo operates in Australia, China, Bangladesh, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore, UK, USA, and some other countries of the world. It was founded in 1949 and in 1985 company opened their first casual wear store.

After BJP government in country, Tadashi Yanai, CEO of Uniqlo met new PM Narendra Modi and Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi. Just after a night, the Japanese retail giant has revealed plans to open up to 1000 stores in India in coming ten years. This would be the largest number of stores by them in any country after China, where the number of stores is 793.

It is not clear if Uniqlo will tie in a partner for its single brand retail foray or operate through a wholly owned subsidiary in the country. India enjoys advantages in garment sector including availability of cotton, skilled workforce, robust infrastructure, and good ports for exports. Uniqlo will source garments from India for exporting to other countries. Company is already in talks with Apparel Export Promotion Council to identify 10 suitable garment company exporters with the right scale. It will add value to company and country growth. India allows clothing retailers to open stores in India if they source at least 30% of their products in the country.


Company would target annual group sales of 5 trillion yen and profit from operations of 1 trillion yen by 2020. Company aims to become the largest manufacturer of Apparel by 2020 with a growth of 20% per year. The company’s International business target breaks down as one trillion yen in China, one trillion in other Asian countries, one trillion in Europe and one trillion in United States. 

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