Fast Retailing raises its profit outlook again after profit outgrew sales for nine months

Fast Retailing raised its full-year net-profit guidance to ¥500 billion from ¥480 billion, the company said alongside results for the nine months to 31 May 2026. Group revenue reached ¥3.0651 trillion, up 17.1% year on year; business profit reached ¥592.7 billion, up 33.6%; and net profit attributable to owners reached ¥426.0 billion, up 25.6%.

Overseas did the heavy lifting

Most of the profit came from abroad. Uniqlo International lifted revenue 25.9% to ¥1.8340 trillion and business profit 45.4% to ¥345.3 billion — the fastest growth anywhere in the group — with double-digit revenue and profit gains in every region the company breaks out: Greater China, South Korea, Southeast Asia, India and Australia, North America and Europe. Overseas Uniqlo is now more than twice the size of Uniqlo Japan by revenue and earns the larger share of its profit.

At home, Uniqlo Japan grew revenue 8.3% to ¥867.6 billion and business profit 15.1% to ¥172.9 billion, with same-store sales up 9.9% on functional ranges, trend-led bottoms and a strong Golden Week. GU added 3.7% in revenue and 28.0% in business profit. The soft spot was Global Brands — Theory, Comptoir des Cotonniers and Princesse tam.tam — where revenue fell 4.2% and profit 33.4%; the company said it has roughly halved the Comptoir des Cotonniers and Princesse tam.tam network, from 144 stores to 77.

Profit growing almost twice as fast as revenue is the more telling number here: it points to margin expansion, not volume alone. The company tied a slightly lower cost-of-sales ratio to more favourable yen rates locked in on forward exchange contracts, on top of full-price selling overseas. With trading holding up through June, it raised the full-year outlook for a second time this fiscal year — to ¥710 billion in business profit and ¥500 billion in net profit — and lifted the annual dividend to ¥640 per share, ¥140 more than a year earlier.