![]() ![]() In 2019 it joined up with Japan’s Mujin and France’s Exotec Solutions, both small robotics companies, with the aim of automating the jobs in its warehouses. The reliance on automation goes deep into the company’s business operations and supply chain, too. ![]() Since 2017 Uniqlo has embedded all its garments with tiny identification tags, which enable automatic scanning at checkouts. Keyence, a largely unheralded giant of industrial automation, is Japan’s second-largest listed firm, worth $111bn. Exposed to demographic constraints in fast-ageing Japan, Fast Retailing has used technology and automation to replace workers, further mimicking the country’s large manufacturers. Now the region represents a promising market for Uniqlo rather than somewhere to put factories. ![]() In the 1960s the focus of Japanese firms was on exploration for oil, the supply of natural resources and producing industrial goods in countries with import-substitution policies. The region now accounts for 16% of sales, up from 11% a year ago, and it is closing in on mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, which dropped from 25% to 22% over the same period. ![]() Fast Retailing is also expanding particularly rapidly in Asia, where sales (excluding its home market and greater China) are up by 71% in the six months to the end of February, compared with the same period a year ago. Japanese industrial firms, carmakers in particular, made South-East Asia a second home from the 1960s onwards. ![]()
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