Japanese retailer UNIQLO to open 3rd store in Delhi NCR

New Delhi: Japanese apparel retailer UNIQLO, which will launch its third store in the city on Saturday, looks to establish itself in the Delhi NCR market before expanding to other regions and tapping into the online retail channel, a top company official said on Friday.

The company forayed into the Indian market in October last year and has two outlets in Delhi-NCR, at present. It is slated to launch the third store on Saturday.

“We are encouraged by the positive feedback from the Indian customers so far. More than a quarter of a million customers have purchased products at our store in India in the past few months and we have exceeded our performance target by around 30 per cent,” UNIQLO India CEO Tomohiko Sei said.

He, however, declined to comment on the financial targets set by the company for the Indian market.

“Our initial focus is to launch our brand and make our first three stores successful. We would like to launch e-commerce as soon as we are ready,” he added.

On being asked about UNIQLO’s plan to expand in other metros, Tomohiko said the Indian market has “huge potential” and would explore them in the next stage.

“We first want to establish in the Delhi NCR region and then we would go to other places,” he added.

Over the sourcing, Tomohiko said UNIQLO is fully complying with the mandatory government guidelines for 30 per cent domestic sourcing and may even increase the limit.

“However, we would not stop at Make in India, with Make in India we also want to Make For India and so our goal is not just to achieve the required 30 per cent but to keep increasing the sourcing of the products as the business grows,” he added.

Under the current norms, 100 per cent FDI is permitted in the single-brand retail trade with a rider of 30 per cent mandatory local sourcing to promote micro, small & medium enterprises (MSMEs).

“We have researched the Indian market carefully and established our strong partners for logistics, manufacturing. Now, we have found partners and started our business in October last year,” Tomohiko said.

The company as per its strategy would have apparels for all age group and types including the young millenials to kids and from casuals to formals, he added.

UNIQLO is a brand of Fast Retailing, a leading Japanese retail holding company with global headquarters in Tokyo, Japan.

It is the largest of eight brands in the Fast Retailing Group, which had a global sales of approximately USD 21.53 billion for the 2019 fiscal year ending August 31, 2019.

UNIQLO has more than 2,200 stores in 25 markets including Japan.