Metro sees Chinese growth - report
further 40 cash & carry outlets in China over the next five
years, the company's CEO Hans-Joachim Körber is quoted as saying
today. And profitability is not far off either, he suggests.
With Ukraine and India under its belt this year, German retail and wholesale giant Metro is turning to China as its next main market for expansion.
According to a report from Dow Jones, the German giant is planning to open 40 more stores in China over the next five years, at a cost of €600 million, again focusing primarily on its cash & carry format.
According to the report, Metro's CEO Hans-Joachim Körber said that while Metro was not the only major retailer planning an assault on the Chinese market - companies such as Carrefour and Wal-Mart are also expected to step up the pace of their development there - he did not consider any of the other players to be any great threat to Metro's own plans.
Speaking to journalists, Körber said that its cash & carry format - which supplies food retailers with the products they want rather than selling them directly to the public - was unique in most of these development markets, and that as such Metro had no real competitors there.
Metro's first store in China opened in the city of Shanghai in 1996, and the company currently has 18 outlets there. But a country the size of China - and especially one with such an undeveloped multiple retail sector - can easily support a further 40 outlets, especially as long as small, independent stores remain the dominant retail fascia.
Making money there, however, is less easy, and despite nearly seven years of operations there, Metro has still not reached profitability. But here too Körber was optimistic, saying that, despite the increased costs related to the expansion, he expected the group to break even within three years.
Metro posted sales of €583 million in China last year.