By Laurie Burkitt
BEIJING-- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is increasing its investments and
opening new stores in China as the fight for Chinese consumers
intensifies in the country's tough retail environment.
The Bentonville, Ark., retailer plans to open 115 new stores
across China by 2017, creating more than 30,000 jobs, the company
said in a statement Wednesday. Wal-Mart previously said it aimed to
run 480 stores in China by 2016, up from around 400 now.
Wal-Mart will also invest 370 million yuan ($59.6 million) to
remodel stores this year, the statement said. The company is also
launching "in the near future" a mobile app to help connect its
stores with its e-commerce arm, Yihaodian, the statement said,
adding that it will enable customers to order merchandise online
and pick it up in the store.
Wal-Mart's move highlights a goal to increase scale in one of
its key growth markets and its ambitions to gain ground against
Chinese competitors that have a larger number of physical stores
and formidable online rivals that dominate e-commerce.
The move comes as Wal-Mart faces a tough retail environment in
China, where in-store sales growth is dwindling for most retailers
for variety of reasons--from slower economic growth to a swift
consumer shift to online shopping. Wal-Mart said in February that
its fourth quarter net sales fell 0.7% in China, down from a year
earlier, and sales at stores open a year, or same-store sales,
dropped 2.3% in the period.
The retailer's executives have said that the Chinese
government's push to stamp out waste in the government and at
state-run companies has pinched sales, lowering sales of gift cards
that state firms previously gave to their employees, cutting sales
of alcohol and gift sets tied to China's gift-giving culture.
Write to Laurie Burkitt at laurie.burkitt@wsj.com
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