Encouraged by better-than-expected sales at its pilot store at SM Mall of Asia, Japanese retail brand Uniqlo is opening more stores to serve a wider market in the Philippines.
Uniqlo is opening its second Philippine store on November 16 on the second floor of SM North Edsa-The Block and will open four additional stores before the end of August 2013, said Katsumi Kubota, COO of Fast Retailing Philippines Inc., in a briefing.
As such, the company is on track with plans to open up to 50 Uniqlo stores in the country within three years. “That can be achieved,” Kubota said.
The brand will likely strengthen its market base in Metro Manila and later expand to other urban areas in the country according to demand, he said.
The Japanese brand broke into the local market in June on the second floor of SM Mall of Asia and sales on its first week was the highest among all Uniqlo stores all over the world for that period, Kubota said. Success in the Philippines is in fact encouraging Uniqlo to expand in Asia, he said.
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is hoping that Uniqlo’s growth would encourage the Japanese company to start making its products in the Philippines.
Trade Undersecretary Cristino L. Panlilio said in a statement that Uniqlo’s holding company had to initially work with SM Retail Inc. to grow its market in the Philippines. Uniqlo was brought here by Fast Retailing Philippines Inc., a joint venture between Fast Retailing Co. Ltd. and SM Retail Inc.
“We are helping the company grow its business in the Philippines to entice it to open up factories here,” Panlilio said.
Currently, most of the company’s products are produced by its partner manufacturing companies in China and other Asian countries.
With the intrinsic hospitality of Filipinos, the Philippines is seen as a strategic location for the Uniqlo’s Asian and global market expansion.
Uniqlo is a brand of Fast Retailing Co. (FR), a global Japanese retail holding company that designs, manufactures and sells apparels for men, women and children under five brands (the other four are Comptoir des Cotonniers, g.u., Princesse tam.tam and Theory). FR has more than 1,100 stores globally.