Japan's department stores split on the inbound swing
Japan's big department-store groups reported within weeks of each other — and split in two. The divide comes down to inbound demand: its timing, and the shifting mix of who is doing the spending.
Japan's big department-store groups reported within a few weeks of each other this summer — and for once they did not move together. Takashimaya's net income jumped 58%; H2O Retailing's fell 14%. Isetan Mitsukoshi's rose 44%; J. Front's slipped. Behind that spread sits one variable that has come to define the floor: inbound spending, and exactly when each company's results happened to capture it.