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Uniqlo shines out among stricken retailers

A sudden cold snap, a cartoon robot, T-shirts sold in tubes, and a stylish range of high tech thermal underwear have provided a rare glint of success on Japan’s increasingly dreadful retail scene, and sharpened Uniqlo’s bid for global domination of low-price fashion.

Investors in the company now believe that Uniqlo management is looking seriously at acquisitions in the UK, where it already has a foothold, and in the US, where asset prices have fallen heavily in recent weeks. A massively strengthened yen rate against sterling and the US dollar are expected to accelerate plans, which are expected to focus on brands with a strong name for design, rather than low price.

With all signs now pointing to Japan being in its sharpest recessionary plunge since the Second World War, the Uniqlo chain of low-priced clothing has scored a spectacular hit: Fast Retailing, the parent company of the brand, said yesterday that same store sales soared over 32 per cent in November, smashing through to a record high.

In the same period, footfall across its store network surged nearly 26 per cent as millions of Japanese consumers tightened their purse strings and simultaneously ditched their hunger for more famous - and more expensive - brands.

The company remains in aggressive expansion mode. It now has a worldwide network of 54 stores outside Japan. Britain, France and the US are all counted among countries that Uniqlo considers converts to the brand. The company has pushed into other Asian markets and is poised to take on Russia: a country that has its own strong views on how to dress fashionably in sub-zero temperatures. Tadashi Yanai, the president of Fast Retailing who has set himself a Y1 trillion annual sales target by the end of 2010, admitted in a recent interview that the company needed to go on the merger trail in the US and Europe to achieve those numbers.

Market analysts at Nomura said that the company was positioned to behave as a contrarian indicator for dwindling activity elsewhere on the Japanese high street. The surprisingly strong performance at Uniqlo, they said, was “hard evidence” that the global recession is biting the Japanese retail scene more fiercely and more rapidly than the market had expected.

In a research note published yesterday, Seiji Shiraishi, an economist at HSBC, warned markets to abandon hopes that the Japanese consumer would ride to the world’s rescue as a force for growth or stability. In a stark warning to clients, he said that Japanese personal consumption has only declined once since the end of the American occupation in 1955, but that markets should expect it to do so again in 2009.

But the November surge in sales was not repeated across other Japanese discount clothing chains. Uniqlo, said analysts, has managed to hit a “winning formula” of using high performance material in unique pieces of clothing: although the products are famously low price, it has effectively managed to kill any snobbery that would mark it out as “cheap”. These factors, said KBC’s Japan retail analyst, were combined with a very slick and effective marketing campaign and “shot the lights out” of the market now that people need to stay warm on a budget.

Even before the winter chills set in, Uniqlo had experimented with other retail tricks – one of the more successful involved devoting entire stores to T-shirts with designs based on nostalgic cartoons and comics and sold in plastic tubes.

Uniqlo, as a brand, forged its reputation in Japan in the late 1990s when it released a range of cheap winter fleeces and down-stuffed jackets. Interest in the fleeces fizzled badly as the Asian Financial Crisis crawled into memory and people felt wealthier. As more bullish times returned, Japanese drifted from Uniqlo and pitched their ambitions higher up the price scale: but now, in a country suddenly faced with mass layoffs among temporary workers, frozen wages and dropping winter temperatures, Uniqlo has succeeded in raising the average spend among shoppers entering its stores.

本文来源：泰晤士报
本文字数：667
发表日期：December 2, 2008 
所属类别：BUSINESS

（注：本阅读材料根据高级口译笔试试卷出题大纲选择，适合09年3月参加笔试的考生备考阅读。请精读此类文章，并总结主题相关词汇。详细阅读材料取材规则请见《09春季高口考生必备的外刊阅读资料》。）

cold snapn. 寒流a spell of cold weather
thermal [ \'θə:məl ] a. 热的,热量的n. 上升的热气流rising current of warm air    relating to or associated with heat     of or relating to a hot spring
stylish [ \'stailiʃ ] a. 现代风格的,流行的,潇洒的having elegance or taste or refinement in manners or dress      being or in accordance with current social fashions
glint [ glint ] n. 闪烁v. 闪耀,闪闪发光,反映a momentary flash of light
a spatially localized brightness   be shiny, as if wet    throw a glance at
dreadful [ \'dredful ] a. 可怕的causing fear or dread or terror  exceptionally bad or displeasing
sterling [ \'stə:liŋ ] a. 英币的(纯粹的,货真价实的) n. 英国货币(英镑) British money
highest in quality
spectacular [ spek\'tækjulə ] a. 公开展示的,惊人的a lavishly produced performance
sensational in appearance or thrilling in effect  characteristic of spectacles or drama
smashing [ \'smæʃiŋ ] a. 猛烈的,兴旺的,了不起的the act of breaking something into small pieces    very good
purse stringsn. 控制财权(管钱)
simultaneously [ saiməl\'teiniəsli ] . ad. 同时地(联立地) at the same instant
ditch [ ditʃ ] n. 沟渠v. 坠沟中a long narrow excavation in the earth    any small natural waterway     forsake      throw away
contrarian . an investor who deliberately decides to go against the prevailing wisdom of other investors
dwindle [ \'dwindl ] v. 减少,缩小. a becoming gradually less    gradually decreasing until little remains
stark [ stɑ:k ] . a. 变硬了的,完全的ad. 实在,简直,全然devoid of any qualifications or disguise or adornment   severely simple        completely
snobbery [ \'snɔbəri ] n. 充绅士气派,俗不可耐的性格the trait of condescending to those of lower social status
nostalgic [ nɔ\'stældʒik, nə- ] a. 乡愁的,怀旧的unhappy at being away and longing for familiar things or persons
fleece [ fli:s ] . n. 羊毛,羊毛状之物the wool of a sheep or similar animal     tanned skin of a sheep with the fleece left on     rip off  shear the wool from
fizzle [ \'fizl ] . n. 嘶嘶声,失败v. 发嘶嘶声,失败a fricative sound (especially as an expression of disapproval)    a complete failure     end weakly
crawler [ \'krɔ:lə ] . . n. 履带牵引装置(履带,履带式拖拉机,爬行物) a person who tries to please someone in order to gain a personal advantage    a person who crawls or creeps along the ground
pitch [ pitʃ ] . n. 程度,投掷,音高v. 投,向前倾跌,扎牢,定调,用沥青覆盖
the property of sound that varies with variation in the frequency of vibration
(baseball) the act of throwing a baseball by a pitcher to a batter
throw or toss with a light    motionmove abruptly   

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