Kintetsu's Abeno Harukas flagship notches a sixth straight month of gains, but the group's adjusted total keeps falling
Kintetsu Department Store's Abeno Harukas flagship grew sales 6.2% in August for a sixth consecutive monthly gain, but the group's like-for-like total — adjusted for the Nagoya store's February closure — fell 5.3%, a reminder that one flagship's strength hasn't yet spread across the rest of the chain.
Kintetsu Department Store's flagship at Abeno Harukas booked its sixth straight month of year-on-year growth in August, with sales up 6.2%, even as the group's more meaningful gauge of underlying demand — like-for-like sales adjusted for a closed store's prior-year base — fell 5.3%, the company said in its August sales flash.
Both domestic and inbound spending rose at the flagship in August, and every department there beat its year-earlier result for a sixth consecutive month, according to Kintetsu Department Store. The company credited footfall to the Shimane instalment of its "Harukas Nippon Expo" region-promotion series and a well-attended "Ice Cream Expo" pop-up on the ninth floor; food sales gained from Obon travel gifts and cooling sweets bought against lingering summer heat, plus character-collaboration pop-ups, while women's fashion kept selling summer blouses. Personal sales through the store's outside-sales channel also held up, led by its renovated premium floor.
Kintetsu's other stores were mixed: Higashi-Osaka (+5.3%) and Uehonmachi (+5.0%) posted the next-strongest gains, followed by Kusatsu (+2.3%), Nara (+1.6%), Ikoma (+1.5%), Wakayama (+1.0%) and Yokkaichi (+0.9%); only Kashihara fell, down 1.1%.
Summed across all nine stores, group sales fell 6.9% in August. That comparison, though, is skewed by the closure of Kintetsu's Nagoya store on February 28, 2026: stripping the closed store's prior-year sales out of the base — the company's own like-for-like measure — leaves the group total down a smaller but still negative 5.3%, Kintetsu Department Store said.
The gap between a genuinely growing flagship and a still-declining like-for-like group total is a clean case study in how a store closure distorts headline math for months afterward: even the adjusted figure, built specifically to exclude Nagoya's effect, stays in the red. Abeno Harukas's run looks less like a broad recovery than a concentrated bet paying off — a renovated premium floor, tenant events timed to summer travel, and the pull of Japan's tallest building for domestic and inbound shoppers alike. Whether that strength ever reaches Kintetsu's smaller suburban stores, most of which are managing only marginal gains, is the question the flagship number can't answer on its own.