Wanqian Department Store Plans To Open More Outlets

Li Yaohan, senior vice president of Wanda Group, told First Financial Daily that Wanqian Department, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wanda Group, has opened three stores within half a year and it plans to open more than 15 stores in the coming three years, realizing an annual revenue of RMB2 billion.

With commercial real estate, high-end goods, cultural products and chain department stores as its four mainstay industries, Wanda Group owns shopping malls in many cities in China. By the end of last year, all the major department stores in its shopping malls were famous chain department stores, including Parkson, New World Department Store and Intime Department Store. However, attracted by the good prospect and high profit of department stores, Wanda Group founded its own Wanqian Department Store on May 8, 2007, marking the group's formal entry into China's chain department store sector.

On October 25, 2007, the first Wanqian Department Store opened in Harbin. Then the second store was open in Chengdu on December 22, 2007 and the third in Xi'an on April 2008. Within half a year, Wanqian Department Store opened three large-scale department stores with a business area of more than 20,000 square meters for each. This development speed is much higher than the average development speed of Chinese department stores, which is 1.22 per year.

Ding Yao, general manager of Wanqian Department Store, says that starting from 2007, Wanqian Department Store will build 100 outlets in 30 to 40 cities in China within ten years. Among these stores, 70% to 80% will be open in the commercial real estate projects of Wanda Group.