Fast Retailing (Uniqlo) tops after record accounts 2023-2024

(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - The shares of Japanese pret-a-porter giant, Fast Retailing, which controls several brands including Uniqlo, on the Tokyo Stock Exchange updated a new record high above 51 yen (+1.28%), after the publication of the accounts for the fiscal year 2023-2024, which ended at the end of August. After all, the numbers are the best ever, with net profit flying 25% to 371.9 billion yen (2.27 billion euros), above consensus. The Japanese clothing champion signed its third consecutive record year, having significantly accelerated its international expansion after the Covid-19 pandemic slowdown.

"These robust results were aided" by its flagship Uniqlo brand overseas, particularly with increased operating margins in North America and across Asia, the company said in a press release. For the 2024/25 financial year, the group expects revenues to rise 9.5% to ¥3.4 trillion and profit to ¥385 billion (+3.5%). The margin on gross profit is expected to improve by 2% to 53.9%.

Returning to last year's figures, Fast Retailing reported total annual sales of ¥3,103.8 billion (+12.2% year-on-year), of which more than half (¥1,712 billion, +19.1%) were generated by its Uniqlo International division (excluding Japan). In Japan, Uniqlo's sales fell 2% year-on-year in the first half of the year, due to mild winter weather that discouraged purchases of its famous down jackets.

Sales in the archipelago also benefited from the influx of foreign tourists (some 35 million are expected, a record figure for the whole of 2024), who were also encouraged to go shopping (tax-free, moreover) by a much-weakened yen. A sore point is China: while sales here, a crucial market for the group, remained solid in the first half of the year, they declined in the second half, Fast Retailing acknowledged. The group pointed to the lower enthusiasm of Chinese consumers, who tend to limit their spending in a gloomy economic environment, but also to 'clothing lines that do not fully match local demand.

For its part, the GU brand - only present on the Japanese market - saw its sales increase by 8.1% to 319.1 billion yen. Fast Retailing is counting on this younger sister of Uniqlo, with cheaper prices, as a new development axis: in September it opened its first GU shop outside Japan, in New York.