Uniqlo to expand children's wear

Japan's largest apparel label, Uniqlo, announced plans to extend its children's and baby wear range by 50 percent on Friday,

to ensure the product offering in on level with its menswear and womenswear collections.

“Until now, our offering, particularly for girls, wasn't sufficient,” said Shuichi Nakajima, group executive vice president at Uniqlo during a news conference, reported Reuters.

The children's wear expansion is part of its parent company Fast Retailing plan to become the world's leading apparel company by 2020, over taking rivals such as Inditex, H&M and Gap who already offer expansive children's wear collections.

Uniqlo aims to double it current revenues for children's wear this year and is set to expand the numer of its Japanese stores which offer its children's wear to 679. The Japanese retailer noted that 600 overseas stores will offer the extended children's wear range, but did not include how many stores would be offering the collection for the first time.

The extended collection will be available from Uniqlo' s fall/winter collection onwards.