Marimekko Expands in Southeast Asia

Finnish fashion company Marimekko (Helsinki) has announced it will continue its expansion in Southeast Asia this year, opening new stores in Singapore and Bangkok, Thailand, where it tested a shop-in-shop at Tangs department store in November.

The Bangkok store will be opened in one of the city's biggest and busiest shopping centers, Central World, which attracts as many as 150,000 customers a day.

The company also plans to open more stores in the region in the next few years, reports Scandasia.

“In our expansion in the international marketplace, we have focused first and foremost on regions with high growth potential. The Asia-Pacific region is our second-largest market area, and we already have a fairly strong foothold in East Asia,” said president and ceo Mika Ihamuotila in a release.

Half of the new Marimekko stores opened in 2014 were in the Asia-Pacific region: two in Hong Kong, one in Chengdu in mainland China, two in Seoul, South Korea, and two in Japan. In Australia, Marimekko opened a company-owned store in Melbourne. The company also opened shops-in-shop in New Zealand and Singapore.