Uniqlo monthly sales boosted by warm weather in March

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Apr 2, 2019

Fast Retailing’s giant Uniqlo chain seems to be continuing its return to form with its latest set of monthly sales figures showing another upturn.

The chain, which had struggled during the winter due to weather issues, has seen improving sales for some months and on Tuesday it said that for March, its same-store sales (including its online ops) in Japan increased by as much as 4.5% year-on-year. Meanwhile total sales, again including online, increased by a healthy 4.2%.

The company said the March improvement was due to “a strong launch of spring/summer ranges such as UT T-shirts, sweat wear, and spring outerwear.”

Customer numbers were also running at a higher level than the year to date, although average purchases per customer were slightly lower.

It was good news on the back of February’s higher sales. Back then, they rose a fairly respectable 3% on a comparable basis and by the same amount in total. The March acceleration must be encouraging for the company that suffered during the mild winter with consumers showing little appetite for its cold-weather offer.

The company had predicted that first-half profits would be hit as it resorted to more markdowns than expected in order to shift winter inventory. But February’s upturn later in Q2 and March’s stronger start to Q3 bode well for the second half if the weather continues to play ball.  March saw temperatures regularly exceeding Japan’s average levels, putting shoppers into the mood for buying spring fashion.