Japan's Fast Retailing said Thursday that sales at its Uniqlo stores abroad had outstripped domestic demand for the first time, as Asia's biggest retailer delivered quarterly earnings that beat market expectations.

Driven by a strong performance in China and the wider Asia region, overseas sales at the cheap-chic Uniqlo chain soared by nearly one third to 258 billion yen ($2.3 billion), just beating the 257 billion yen from domestic sales. Uniqlo also saw solid revenue growth in the United States, France and Russia.

Total net profit came in at 78.5 billion yen in the three months to November, up 12.7 percent from the same period the preceding year, said Fast Retailing, a rival to Zara, Gap and H&M.

The result beat a median forecast of 63 billion yen from analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.