Since its foray into India in 2019, Uniqlo India has limited its expansion to the northern region with 10 stores. But now, the Japanese lifewear brand, which counts tennis icon Roger Federer among its global endorsers, is looking beyond. Uniqlo India, which recorded a revenue of Rs622 crore in FY23, up from Rs389 crore in FY22, recently opened its first store in Mumbai, at Phoenix Marketcity, and will follow up with another at Goregaon’s Oberoi Mall on October 20. The company’s India CEO Tomohiko Sei sits down with Forbes India to break down the company’s strategy in the country’s crowded retail market. Edited excerpts:
Q. Uniqlo came into India in 2019. And in the past four years opened 10 stores, all in the northern region. Why the foray into Mumbai now?
When we want to bring our brand to a new city or a new country, we want to focus on creating a strong operation, supply chain and store manager, which you can’t have in a day or two. We need time to develop and build strong operations in one area before we can move to a new city. Now that we have it, we have come to Mumbai, and are opening in two locations. We are also evaluating more locations in Mumbai, and trying to expand in the format that we did in Delhi-NCR and the northern region.
Q. What are Uniqlo’s top markets globally and where does India feature in the global plans?
Our biggest market, of course, is our home market of Japan. Then there are markets like China, Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), EU (European Union) and US (United States). But India offers the biggest space to expand the business. That’s why it’s quite an important business market for us. At the same time, we can also expand the local production space in India and potentially be a high-quality production market even though we don’t have our own factories and operate through our partners.
Q. India"s retail fashion market is quite crowded with your competitor brands like H&M, Zara etc. What is Uniqlo’s strategy to stand out in this market?
Each brand has its own brand philosophy. Our concept is the lifewear concept, which isn’t a short-term fashion trend we are standing on the quality barrier. So I believe Uniqlo’s standing point is quite unique and different from the others. We should focus on taking this concept to the people.
First Published: Oct 09, 2023, 13:26
Subscribe Now