Singapore-Based Courts Retail Opens Second Megastore in Indonesia

“Indonesia is currently the driver of Courts’ growth. Since we first entered Indonesia in 2014, we now operate two megastores and three regular outlets. We aim to open twelve more outlets by 2018. This is our commitment in catering to the demands of Indonesians,” Roy Santoso, Courts Retial Indonesia country chief executive officer, said in a statement over the weekend.

Courts opened its first big-box store in Indonesia last year in the Kota Harapan Indah township of Bekasi, on the eastern outskirts of the capital, before expanding with smaller stores in Bogor, West Java. Its Singapore-based headquarters currently operates 80 stores with over 1.6 million square meters of retail space in Southeast Asia.

As of November last year, sales from Indonesia contributed to 1.7 percent of Courts Asia’s sales of S$186.1 million ($130.17 million), up 4.2 percent year-on-year, according to a listing on the Singapore Exchange.

Retailers, both local and foreign-owned, have long touted Indonesia as an attractive market, thanks to its expanding middle class and young consumers.

The country’s retail industry is projected to grow between 11 percent and 12 percent this year, after a modest 8 percent growth last year, as purchasing power across the country is expected to rebound alongside improving economic growth, according to Indonesia’s Retailers Association chairman Roy Mendey.

“There was some cooling down in [purchasing power] last year because of slowing growth but we started to see an upward trend in sales during the fourth quarter,” he said recently.