Spar International to expand into China

Grocery retail franchise Spar International will open more than 150,000sqm of retail sales space in China this year.

The firm’s store-development plans include compact hypermarkets and a “new generation” of supermarkets in Northern and Southern China.

Spar International, which operates more than 13,000 stores in 48 countries worldwide, is coming off a strong financial year with global sales of €35.8 billion (US$40 billion). The group launched 335 new locations last year, and entered four new countries.

“Our strong network of Spar partners and supply chains across four continents gives the brand a competitive advantage in an increasingly global marketplace,” said Spar CEO Tobias Wasmuht, “while our multi-format strategy allows us to respond to changing customer needs.

“Our continuous compound annual growth of 5.2 per cent over the last three years creates a strong platform to build from for the future and indicates that our ‘Better Together’ strategy, launched in 2016, continues to deliver for the organisation, our partners and our customers.”

The Spar brand is present in seven Asia Pacific territories, with €1.96 billion ($2.2 billion) in sales achieved from 573 stores last year. Spar China’s footprint accounted for 830,043sqm and sales of €1.5 billion ($1.67 billion) during the financial year, with particularly strong growth in the Shandong and Guangdong provinces. The firm’s Thailand operations expanded to 45 stores and recorded a sales growth of 96.2 per cent.