Do we like Uniqlo?
Japanese everyday clothing brand (fleeces, basics) run by Fast Retailing, based in Tokyo, with 2,500+ stores worldwide
Our score: 4 out of 10. Well-made, cheap basics and a very successful business. But there are repeated supply-chain labour rows, and the Xinjiang cotton question has never been settled to our satisfaction. We'd hold back.
Uniqlo began in 1984 when Tadashi Yanai opened a store in Hiroshima, using his father's menswear business as the base. He renamed the company Fast Retailing in 1991. Yanai is still chairman, president and CEO of the parent company, and Bloomberg lists him as its biggest shareholder.
It's now huge. Reuters (via The Star) reports more than 2,500 Uniqlo stores. Fast Retailing posted a fifth straight record annual profit in October 2026, and revenue rose about 17% to 3.96 trillion yen. Growth in North America and Europe is leading the way. Business-wise, it's flying.
The big shadow is Xinjiang. In 2021 US customs said Uniqlo hadn't proved its cotton shirts weren't made partly with forced labour. Uniqlo said it was disappointed and that it had given customs paperwork meeting the import rules. French prosecutors also opened a probe, and Fast Retailing said it would cooperate and that there was no forced labour in its supply chains.
Workers' rights groups have been on its case for years. SACOM accused two Chinese suppliers of excessive overtime and low base pay. The Clean Clothes Campaign says about 4,000 Indonesian workers are owed $5.5m in severance after a Uniqlo supplier collapsed. Fast Retailing says that supplier was legally responsible and that it tried to help workers find jobs.
On the plus side, Fast Retailing keeps announcing emergency aid after floods, quakes and hurricanes, and says it was well rated in a 2026 human-rights benchmark. A great business, then, but with unresolved supply-chain questions and little proof they've been fixed. That's why we land at a 4: respectable, not one we'd back.