ng Kong last month.  For Moshi Moshi, it’s another serious competitor in an outlandishly popular category. The thing about Oh!Some is that it is strikingly similar with respect to its creative products, its very accessible pricing, its category assortment and its playful store ambience. In some respects, it outdoes the Thai retailer, particularly with some of its interactive experiential features. Still, Moshi Moshi is used to having competition in most of its categories, with companies like Miniso and Daiso having operated almost cheek-by-jowl with it in some regional malls for a long time. Moshi Moshi is a home-grown Thai company, even though it has a Japanese-sounding name and a concept that could easily be right out of Japan itself, although its supply chain is heavily reliant on China. It has been operating in the Thai market for decades and this is one of the keys to its competitive advantage: it has an understanding of Thai consumers and a deep take on local preferences that is simply unparalleled. It already has 181 stores in Thailand and is deeply embedded in popular mall culture, so in Thailand it has such a big head start that it is hard to see Oh!Some ever matching it, although it could take a bite out of the market if it gets traction. Moshi Moshi isn’t taking any chances and is rolling out new products and back-filling locations quickly: it has opened 17 stores in the first half of the year alone and plans 23 more by the end of the year to get it over the 200 threshold. Same-store sales accelerate, but tourism worries increase too Operating revenue rose by 24.5 per cent in the first six months of 2025 to 1.654.4 billion Thai baht (US$52 million), with both new stores and stronger same-store sales growth raising the top line. The latter experienced rapid acceleration in the second quarter, rising 15.2 per cent on top of 7.9 per cent in the first. (These numbers were inflated by supply chain problems that suppressed growth in the corresponding base year period.) With the gross profit margin also rising, net profit after tax was 290.4 million baht (US$9 million), an improvement of more than 40 per cent on the comparable six-month period a year ago.  Like other Thai retailers and mall operators, the company is not just concerned about competition but is particularly anxious about the unexpected decline in tourism this year. The number of international arrivals has been well down in the first half, and that was before hostilities erupted on the Thai-Cambodian border, shutting down cross-border traffic of both goods and people and raising more questions about the country’s overall safety above and beyond the usual scams, thefts and violence. The decline in tourists from China is an extra special worry for Moshi Moshi because they are a target customer base. The fall-off in Chinese tourists hasn’t just been marginal: it’s been catastrophic. In the year before the pandemic, more than 11 million Chinese visited Thailand. This year, Thailand will be lucky to see 5 million. For Moshi Moshi, this is a serious headwind, not just because one of its most lucrative customer segments is missing in action, but also because it operates mainly in malls where it can capture impulse buying from passing shoppers: if footfall is down, so goes with it that opportunity. Still, the company’s fortunes are by no means hitched exclusively to the vicissitudes of international tourism. Although many of its stores are located in regional malls, it is lately focussing more on neighbourhood hypermarket-anchored centres, which have lower foot traffic but are often the commercial heart and soul of the local community and demand lower rents than in the more trophy regional centres. It is also rolling out a new, larger-format prototype — about 300sqm compared to the average of just over 200 square metres for most of its conventional stores — that serves university campuses. It also operates a thriving wholesale business that accounts for 13 per cent of company sales and includes two units at Bangkok’s Platinum Fashion Mall, an immense multi-building vertical mall in the heart of Bangkok that draws spectacular customer traffic. E-commerce is not a neglected channel either: company products are distributed through Shopee, Lazada and TikTok, among others. Interestingly, the company has stopped talking up overseas expansion, which was on the agenda as a growth opportunity last year but now appears to be on the back burner as Moshi Moshi shores up its domestic position. This doesn’t mean it won’t happen, it’s just that the company wants to fortify itself and plug gaps domestically as a top priority. Another wave of new products Moshi Moshi still gets all of its merchandise under one of 12 merchandise headings — home accessories, bags, stationery, cosmetics, fashion accessories, beauty, fashion (primarily t-shirts, hoodies and hats), snacks, toys, plush toys, IT gadgets and ‘etc’. Apart from the staples, it is good at capturing seasonal opportunities. Moshi Moshi customers are mostly young, from tween through mid-thirties, with a big chunk of the customer base coming from students. This connection with students is driving the experiment with campus-adjacent store formats.  The company is constantly introducing new products to freshen up stores and attract repeat visits. In the second quarter alone, it introduced several thousand new items, including more licensed products (a key driver of new products), trendy lifestyle products and back-to-school necessities. It is masterful at harnessing local pop culture and embedding it in its products, and incredibly creative too: perhaps it’s the only retailer in the world that can make things like masking tape look pretty and fun. The company continues to target 20 per cent revenue growth this year, and that should be achievable, in a category that Thai consumers just don’t seem to be able to get enough of.