Nine brands, six markets, one basic white shirt. Hand-collected 5 August 2026.
The China map holds the market constant and varies the brand: who sits where in one country. This holds the brand constant and varies the market: what one item costs in six countries, and whether the answer changes when somebody else operates the brand there.
Take-home by 2028, reached by cutting discount from 27.8% to 12%. Gross margin walks to 77.6%.
Distributor sales by 2029, from zero. Inside a build to 100 doors across 16 regions by 2030.
Under a wholesale or licence model, the brand does not set the take-home price. Whoever holds the market does. Both commitments sit in the same document and nobody has measured whether they fit together.
Seven comparator brands have already run the experiment. Four operate every one of these markets themselves. Four hand at least one market to somebody else.
The roster is not arbitrary. Seven of the nine appear in our own staff survey's APAC consideration set, so these are brands the organisation says our customer actually sees.
| Brand | Role on the evidence | Markets priced | Match basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uniqlo | Control own company in all six | 6 | code in 2 markets, spec elsewhere |
| COS | Control H&M Group entity in all six | 6 | same code in all six |
| Theory | Control Fast Retailing owned | 6 | same code in five |
| Ralph Lauren | Control own company in all six | 6 | same code in five |
| Zara | Treatment franchised in Singapore only | 6 | same style in five |
| Brooks Brothers | Treatment not direct anywhere | 4 | code varies by operator |
| Lacoste | Treatment distributor in three of six | 3 | code varies |
| G2000 | Treatment franchised in Singapore | 3 | same code in three |
| DETERMINANT APAC | Ours HK, SG, VN | 3 | same code, 301 |
Operating model was filled only from a quotable source: a corporate filing, a group subsidiary list, a company registry, or a statement on the brand's own site. Where none existed it is left unknown rather than inferred. 48 of 51 established.
Every cross-market number here depends on one exchange rate table. The table we started with was a set of desk estimates built off USD/CNY at 7.20. The renminbi has since strengthened to about 6.76.
| Currency | Estimate used | Live rate | Error |
|---|---|---|---|
| Japanese yen | 0.0480 | 0.04288 | -10.7% |
| Korean won | 0.00533 | 0.0047352 | -11.2% |
| Taiwan dollar | 0.2250 | 0.20860 | -7.3% |
| Hong Kong dollar | 0.9200 | 0.8617 | -6.3% |
| Singapore dollar | 5.4000 | 5.2710 | -2.4% |
| Australian dollar | 4.6800 | 4.7496 | +1.5% |
On the old rates this deck would have said the market barely moves the price. On live rates it moves it by about a quarter. The finding on the next page exists only because the rates were replaced.
Rates dated 5 August 2026 from two independent providers that agree within 0.2% on the six currencies both carry. Taiwan dollar and Vietnamese dong are single-source. These are mid-market rates, not a dealt rate.
Index of the four brands that operate every market themselves, Hong Kong set to 100. Holding the brand and the product constant, this is what the market alone does to a price.
A single APAC take-home price is roughly 12% expensive in Japan and 12% cheap in Singapore. That is the size of the argument for or against one number across the region.
Four brands, one garment, one day. The band is 24 points wide and the two single-source currencies sit inside it, so treat the ranking as firmer than the exact figures.
Take-home for one basic white shirt, converted to RMB at live rates. Hong Kong dollar is one of the two rates carrying an independent cross-check, so this ladder needs the fewest assumptions of anything here.
G2000 is the brand our own frontline named as our value block. In Hong Kong we sit 25% underneath it. In Singapore we sit level with it: G2000 421, ourselves 422.
Our own figure is the 301 shirt at its official market price. Singapore ladder in the appendix of the live grid.
This is the sharpest break from China, where the event price is the price and the nationals hold 35% to 60% of ticket. In these six markets, 88% of what we observed was full price.
| The five exceptions | % of ticket | Who operates it |
|---|---|---|
| Lacoste, Japan | 60% | direct |
| Lacoste, Korea | 73% | licensed |
| Uniqlo, Taiwan | 77% | direct |
| G2000, Taiwan | 80%66% on a bundle | direct |
| Theory, Korea | 95% | not established |
The bundle is not an APAC habit. One bundle appears in forty-three cells, at G2000 in Taiwan. The Benjamin Barker three-for-S$175 architecture we flagged in July is a Singapore local-brand pattern, not a regional norm.
Discount discipline is normal here, not distinctive. Removing our own discount from 27.8% to 12% moves us toward the market standard rather than ahead of it. It buys margin, not position.
The missing prices are not random. 4 of 12 non-direct cells have no obtainable price, against 1 of 29 direct cells. Ten times the rate. Distributor and franchise markets often run no brand website, so the panel systematically under-observes the very cells this measure depends on.
The next page shows one brand where two licensed markets and two franchised markets sit 74% apart. Both are "not direct". Grouping them together hides more than it reveals.
Brooks Brothers operates none of these four markets itself. All four are somebody else. They price 74% apart, and they split cleanly by the type of partner.
| Market | Take-home, RMB | Operator | Type of partner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Japan | 849 | Brooks Brothers (Japan) Ltd, 80.5% held by Daidoh Limited | local listed corporate |
| Korea | 848 | Artworks Korea Brooks Brothers Co Ltd, a CJ affiliate | local conglomerate |
| Hong Kong | 1,284 | Walton Brown Group joint venture | luxury retail group |
| Singapore | 1,476 | ImagineX Group | luxury retail group |
The two local corporates land within one renminbi of each other and roughly 40% below the two Lane Crawford Joyce companies. A licence does not raise or lower price by itself. The partner's own retail position does.
Lacoste points the same way from the other side: it discounts hardest in the markets it runs itself, Japan at 60% and Korea at 73% of ticket, and holds ticket exactly in Australia where a distributor runs it. Three observations, directional only.
COS runs through an H&M Group operating company in every one of the six markets. It carries no licensee, no distributor and no franchise partner anywhere in this panel.
The tightest price discipline in the set belongs to the brand with the least outsourced distribution. Our plan proposes to tighten price discipline and outsource distribution at the same time.
G2000 at 1.18x and our own 1.23x are measured across three markets, not six, so they are not comparable with the six-market figures. A narrower observation window produces a narrower spread.
Staff brand survey, 158 responses across both regions, closed 14 July 2026. The regional split is the cleanest result in it.
mainland Chinese brands named by any APAC respondent. Not one, in either wave.
APAC mentions of the premium outdoor cluster that dominates the China answer: Descente, Arc'teryx, Kolon, On.
brands in this panel appear in the APAC or bridge consideration set, which is why the roster looks like it does.
Benjamin Barker · Suit Supply · Marks & Spencer · Calvin Klein · House of Axis · Club 21 · Nice Rice
Uniqlo · MUJI · G2000 · Ralph Lauren · Hugo Boss · COS · Zara · Theory · Tommy Hilfiger · Brooks Brothers · Lululemon
There is no shared competitor set between the two markets. A single positioning statement has to be argued on something other than a common rival, because the rival lists do not overlap at all on the local side.
It also validates this panel: the roster was chosen from the map, and it turns out to match what our own APAC staff say the customer shops.
Caveat carried from the survey itself: 13 of the 158 respondents were DET APAC. This is a strong signal on direction and a weak one on magnitude, and it measures staff perception rather than customer behaviour.
The single cheapest thing that would sharpen all of this: price the polo, and check two or three of these prices in an actual store.
Every figure in this deck resolves from one dataset. The grid is live, filterable by garment, price basis, tax treatment and currency, and each cell carries its source and its date.
det-market-study.pages.dev/map-apac/
Prices hand-collected 5 August 2026 from brands' own market websites. Operating models from corporate filings, group subsidiary lists and company registries; 48 of 51 established, the rest left unknown rather than inferred. Exchange rates 5 August 2026, mid-market, two providers. Confidential, Tessellation Group.