Uniqlo Philippines COO Katsumi Kubota was all smiles as he surveyed the crowd of shoppers at his company’s store in SM City Clark last Thursday, the eve of the three-day “Northern Uniqlo Anniversary Sale” in celebration of the Japanese clothing brand’s third year in the country.
With only three stores primarily in the metropolis in 2012, Uniqlo has now 23. An affirmation that “the Philippines continues to be an exciting market for Uniqlo,” as Shuhei Yamada, Uniqlo Pampanga area manager declared in his brief remarks at the media and VIP event.
Kubota said Uniqlo targets to have at least 200 outlets in the country by 2020. This, he said, coming from Uniqlo owner Tadashi Yanai himself, in the wake of the latter’s meeting with President Aquino during his last official visit to Japan.
The growing local markets, Kubota said, serves as the driving force behind the planned expansion of the retail stores.
He cited as “specially important” Uniqlo’s market in North and Central Luzon served by SM City Pampanga, SM City Clark, and SM City Rosales in Pangasinan which are the locales of their anniversary sale. In the works is a branch at the SM City Cabanatuan, which is set to open this September.
At the launch of its anniversary sale in SM City Clark, Uniqlo unveiled its newest line of innovative denim jeans via a special sneak peek.
Hitting its stores very soon, Uniqlo’s new denim jeans “perfectly mix aesthetic quality with advanced clothing technology to give Pinoy consumers their best pair yet.”
Four new denim jeans: Miracle Air Skinny Fit Jeans, Ultra Stretch Jeans, Smart Shape Jeans, and Stretch Selvedge Slim Fit Jeans were made available nationwide starting August 3.
“By understanding the everyday need of our consumers, we are introducing Uniqlo’s high-quality denim jeans,” said Yamada.
“We have opened a new page in the history of jeans as we partnered with the world’s best denim manufacturer, Kaihara, to elevate everyday movement.”
According to its PR collaterals, “Uniqlo provides clothing with innovation and real value, engineered to improve everyday life year-round for women, men, kids and babies. Committed to creating clothing that focuses on the wearer, product offerings include Filipino’s everyday wear necessities such as premium denim jeans, graphic T-shirts, polo shirts, Supima cotton T-shirts and innerwear.
The product lineup will also include the brand’s unique and proprietary collections AIRism, HEATTECH, and Ultra-Light Down.”
Uniqlo is a brand of Fast Retailing Co., Ltd., a leading global Japanese retail holding company that designs, manufactures and sells clothing under seven main brands: Comptoir des Cotonniers, GU, Helmut Lang, J Brand, Princesse tam.tam, Theory, and Uniqlo.
With global sales of approximately 1.14 trillion yen ($11.62 billion, calculated in yen using the end of August 2013 rate of $1 = 98.36 yen), Fast Retailing is one of the world’s largest apparel retail companies, and Uniqlo is Japan’s leading specialty retailer.
As of August 2015, the company has a total of more than 1,400 stores in 16 markets worldwide: Japan, Australia, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, U.K. and the U.S.
– with Uniqlo PR
