Uniqlo Korea sales fell 40% in the boycott; CFO's 'short-lived' gibe made it worse

Amid the escalating trade dispute between Seoul and Tokyo, Korean consumers were boycotting Japanese goods — and Uniqlo's South Korea sales dropped 40 percent, industry sources said. The slide accelerated after July 11, 2019, when Uniqlo CFO Takeshi Okazaki said during an earnings press call that the boycott's impact would be short-lived. Eleven days later Fast Retailing issued an apology, saying the CFO had misspoken and had meant to say he 'hoped' its impact would be short-lived.

A local news outlet reported Uniqlo was closing its Jongno 3-ga store because of falling sales — the property owner said Uniqlo did not wish to renew the lease as it could not meet the contract terms. Uniqlo officials denied any connection with the boycott, saying the store was closing 'in accordance with the termination of the contract'. Uniqlo declined to reveal detailed sales figures. The stakes were large: the year before, Uniqlo Korea had posted record sales of 1.3 trillion won (about $1.08 billion) and 234 billion won in operating profit, above 1 trillion won every year since 2015.

Sales nose-dived after July 11, when Okazaki told the earnings call the boycott's impact 'would be short-lived' — publicly minimizing a boycott in full swing.

Fast Retailing's apology confirmed the CFO had misspoken — he meant to say he 'hoped' the impact would be short-lived — but it came 11 days after the remark.

Uniqlo declined to release detailed sales figures, leaving the industry's 40 percent drop estimate standing uncontested.

The Jongno 3-ga closure was officially 'contract termination', but the property owner said Uniqlo could no longer meet the lease terms as sales fell.

Dismissing a consumer boycott in public dares it to prove you wrong: one CFO sentence turned a trade-dispute boycott into a story about brand arrogance.

As of early August 2019, the boycott was still running and Uniqlo was absorbing a 40 percent sales decline against the prior year's record ₩1.3 trillion. The Jongno 3-ga store closed, with company and landlord telling different stories about why. Uniqlo kept its sales figures internal.