Japanese casual wear brand Uniqlo wants to become the world's largest retail clothing brand

Fast Retailing Co, the parent company of Japanese casual apparel brand Uniqlo, has announced ambitious global expansion plans to allow Uniqlo to overtake competitors such as Gap and Zara in Spain to become the world's largest retail apparel brand . Uniqlo’s parent company plans to open 200 to 300 stores each year outside of Japan, most of which are located in the booming Asian market.

Comprehensive media reported on September 14 that as the operator of Uniqlo casual apparel chain, Fast Retailing Co. announced on Wednesday (September 14) a large-scale expansion plan for Uniqlo, with the goal of Become the largest clothing retailer in the world.

Fast Retailing Group CEO Tajashi Yanai stated at the press conference that the company plans to open 200 to 300 new stores each year outside of Japan in the next three years in order to catch up with rivals such as Gap Inc. and Zara. At the press conference introducing the latest strategy, Tadashi Yanai, CEO of Fast Retailing, said that if possible, they will achieve the goal of setting a new store opening speed within one or two years, at the latest It will also achieve this goal within three years.

As the clothing retailer with the highest sales in Japan, most of UNIQLO's new store opening plans are located in the booming Asian market. It plans to open 100 new stores each year in China, open 100 new stores every year in South Asia, and open new stores in South Korea every year. In addition, it opened 30 new stores every year in Taiwan, China. Uniqlo also plans to open 20 new stores each year in the United States and Europe. Yanai Yan said that they hope to become Asia's number one clothing retailer, and eventually achieved the world's top position.

Fast Retailing Group expects that the number of middle-income consumers in Asia will increase by 1 billion to 2 billion over the next 10 years. The group is also considering opening new stores in India, Australia, New Zealand and South America.

Fast Retailing opened 840 UNIQLO stores in Japan, 180 UNIQLO stores outside Japan, and considered overseas regions as key factors in its growth. In the case of economic stagnation and the shrinking population of Japan, although the ideals of other Japanese retailers are the same as fast-selling companies, their expansion rate is not as fast as Uniqlo.

Fast Retailing Company stated that it plans to achieve a sales target of 1.7 trillion yen ($22 billion) in the fiscal year ending in August 2015 and further advance towards its long-term goal - to achieve 5 trillion yuan in the fiscal year ending in August 2020 Yen ($65 billion) annual sales revenue. The company’s sales revenue for the fiscal year that year is expected to be 1 trillion yen (13 billion US dollars).

However, in terms of the number of stores, the company still has a certain distance from the largest retailer in the world. As the operator of the Zara casual wear chain, Spain's Inditex has more than 5,000 stores in 78 countries, and the United States Gap also has 3,200 stores worldwide.

Yanai Yanzheng said last week that during the fiscal year ending in August 2012, each of the fast-selling company's newly opened stores will contribute about 2 trillion yen in annual sales. Fast Retailing plans to open at least 100 Uniqlo clothing chains in Asia outside of Japan. Promoted to the world's largest clothing retailer.

It is reported that at present, the world's largest clothing retailer - Spain's Zara brand's parent company Inditex SA currently has more than 5,000 stores in 78 countries; while the US apparel brand Gap has a total of more than 3200 stores worldwide.