Japan’s May retail sales fell 12.3% year-on-year, double-digit decline for two consecutive months, but the decline slowed down. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the prolonged blockade measures, which hit consumer confidence, Japan’s retail sales fell by 13.9% in April this year, the largest decline since March 1998.

Japan lifted the state of emergency throughout May 25th. In May, retail sales increased slightly by 2.1% compared with the previous month, and bottomed out for the first time since February, showing signs that the worst economic impact of the pandemic may have passed.

 

From the perspective of apparel retail sales, Japanese apparel retail sales were 589 billion yen in May, an increase of 41.9% from the previous month, but they were still down 34.3% from the same period of the previous year and slowed down from the 54.1% year-on-year decrease in April.

 

Japan’s largest apparel retailer, Fast Retailing Co. Ltd., said Uniqlo’s same-store sales in Japan fell 18.1% year-on-year in May, narrowing sharply. Since Japan entered a state of emergency from April 8, Uniqlo’s local same-store sales in April plunged 56.5%, the largest decline since the record began in September 1996, and fell 27.8% in March.