TOKYO -- Japanese apparel retailer Fast Retailing Co. said Thursday its flagship clothing chain Uniqlo has launched Internet sales in China via a tie-up with online seller Taobao, a unit of Alibaba Group.Alibaba Group, which is 39%-owned by Yahoo Inc., is the parent company of business-to-business trading platform Alibaba.com Ltd.
Fast Retailing Chief Executive Tadashi Yanai said the tie-up will enable Uniqlo, known for its affordable basic clothing, to tap into Taobao's consumer base. The site, on which users can buy and sell items from each other or from branded stores, has around 100 million registered users, with an annual transaction volume of over $14.6 billion.
Uniqlo, which entered China in 2002, now has 21 stores in that country but a limited online presence. It currently has online sales in South Korea and the U.K.
Uniqlo has 766 stores in Japan and a total of 71 stores overseas, including China, Hong Kong, South Korea, the U.K., the U.S. and France.
Expanding Uniqlo's sales in Asia and other international markets is a key plank of Fast Retailing's strategy for achieving its lofty goal of becoming the world's biggest apparel retailer by sales by 2020. Fast Retailing had revenue in the fiscal first half of about $3.2 billion, with 94% coming from domestic Uniqlo operations. The current apparel leader by revenue is U.S.-based Gap Inc., which reported $14.5 billion in fiscal 2008 sales.
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2 comments:
China market is the market that we cannot ignore for now and in at least 10 years time.
Right, market is in favor of Chinese manufacturers because of the demand of low cost inferior goods as well. People from around the world are seeking ways to cut production cost as much as possible.
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