Uniqlo anticipates record profits despite sales forecast slash

Fast Retailing, owner of Japanese retailer Uniqlo, has said it is expecting a third year of record profits as it forges ahead with European and North American expansion, despite cutting its sales forecast by £104 million.

Fast Retailing Group has reported large and unexpectedly high revenue and profit gains across its businesses both in Europe and North America.

It attributed the figures to "continued growth in new customer bases and growing support for LifeWear among local customers". Uniqlo launched its LifeWear collection in June last year.

The growth plans across the two western regions come as sales at home continue to decline, with the group citing seven Europe and US Uniqlo flagships among its 10 best-performing stores.

Taku Morikawa, CEO of Uniqlo Europe, said: "The apparel market in Europe is worth 70 trillion yen [£365bn], but Uniqlo’s share is still only about 0.5% of that."

"In the central areas of London and Paris, Uniqlo has not caught fire in comparison to competitors."

The group said that the "accelerated opening" of new stores across the two regions had played a major role in the markets' "extremely strong performances" and now expects both to achieve record performances in the latter half of its fiscal year to the end of August.

Fast Retailing said that while it expected to deliver a record full-year performance, it had slashed its sales forecast by 20 billion yen (£104m) to 3.03 trillion yen (£15.bn) to reflect the shortfall in the first half of the year.