First Belgium, then the Netherlands
“The Netherlands is the focal point of European trade. I want to start over there quickly”, Yana (65) told Dutch newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad. Nevertheless, it is almost certain that Uniqlo will come to Belgium first: it has already asked for a building permit in Antwerp, to create a store on the city’s main shopping street Meir.
It is not clear where and when Uniqlo will head to the Netherlands, but it will probably choose a popular shopping street. In Europe, the company has always chosen recognizable places in the most popular and most expensive shopping streets in major cities, like Regent Street and Oxford Street (London), L’Opéra (Paris), the Tauentzienstraße (Berlin) and Meir (Antwerp).
The Japanese clothing retailer is looking for foreign expansion: it had 598 foreign stores on 31 May, most of which were in China. The year before, it only had 410 foreign stores. However, it still gets more than 50 % of its turnover from the 860 Uniqlo stores in Japan.
