General
In Alibaba and Amazon’s shadow, Japanese Rakuten Ichiba is quickly developing. Several Western chains are using the platform to sell their products to Japanese online consumers.
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Fashion
In the past fiscal year, Japanese Uniqlo more than doubled its profit on the back of a 4 % turnover increase. The fashion chain forecasts international sales to soon outgrow those of Japan.
Amazon will open a pop-up bar in Tokyo’s Ginza district in order to promote liquors it has on its web shop. It will be the first time Amazon opens its very own bar.
(content provided by EuroCommerce) After more than four years of negotiation, the EU and Japan have reached a political agreement in principle on an Economic Partnership Agreement during Japanese Prime Minister Abe’s visit to Brussels.
Fast Retailing, which owns Japanese fashion company Uniqlo, published very disappointing third quarter profit results. Turnover grew nearly 9 % but its profit failed to meet analysts’ expectations.
Japanese Fast Retailing, fashion chain Uniqlo’s parent company, has managed to drastically speed up its production cycle. From now on, it will only take thirteen days to bring a design to the stores.
Electronics
Japanese electronics manufacturer Panasonic expects the weaker yen to positively affect the operating income for its current fiscal year. For the third quarter, investments did have a negative impact on its profit.
For the second time in a relatively short period, Sony issued a profit alert for its current fiscal year. The Japanese company has been struggling for a while, but its shaky movie division has now aggravated the situation.
Japanese gaming company Nintendo managed a profit in its third quarter thanks to the weaker yen but also because of the very successful Pokémon games.
Toshiba has not even recovered from the infamous accounting scandal from the spring of 2015, or it risks losing billions again. This time the Japanese company may need to write off two billion dollars on its nuclear activities.
Food
British sports store chain Sports Direct sold has sold its sports clothing brand Dunlop to Japanese Sumitomo Rubber Industries for 137.5 million dollars (132.3 million euro). Sumitomo already had Dunlop's rights in Japan and Taiwan.infamous
A Japanese earthquake in April has created supply shortages for Belgian camera stores, because one of Sony's sensor factories was badly damaged leading to a shortage of essential camera parts.
m-Tail
Amazon is set to launch its own cooking show in Japan, with a chef who prepares several local specialties. Viewers can order several dishes from the show directly on Amazon.
American Amazon launched a Chinese version of its Japanese web shop, hoping to capture part of the Chinese market currently dominated by the Chinese Alibaba Group.
Automotive
Japanese car manufacturer Mitsubishi is set to pay 600 million dollars (530 million euro) in damages to customers who purchased a car that turned out to exhaust more harmful gases than officially stated.
Three electronics giants (Apple, Samsung and Sony) have published their results this week, showing that only Samsung managed to grow in the smartphone market over the past quarter.
