Uniqlo sales lowest in four years

Japanese high street conglomerate Uniqlo has seen its sales slide to the lowest level in four

years in the three months to May.

Uniqlo's parent company Fast Retailing had to adjust its net income estimate for the year ending August by 5 per cent. Fast Retailing's president Tadashi Yanai, aka, Japan’s wealthiest man (net worth $9.2bn), has seen the value of his 27 per cent holding in the Uniqlo parent fall by more than a quarter this year. That’s a slump three times worse than the benchmark, making Asia’s biggest clothier the worst-performing retailer across the region, reported the Financial Times.

For all its determination to build overseas – this year Uniqlo added stores in China and Russia to its UK, US, France and South Korean portfolios – the company is on course to get 95 per cent of this year’s operating income from anaemic Japan.

Perhaps next year Tadashi Yanai will no longer top the Japanese rich list?