December 20, 2007 -- The 100th Wal-Mart Supercenter Loudi Store was launched in Hunan province on December 10. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. held a grand celebration ceremony for the approval of the one hundredth store in Mainland China with Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez from the U.S. Department of Commerce and Vice Minister Jiang Zengwei from China's Ministry of Commerce in Beijing on the same day.

The 100th supercenter`s opening is a representation of the retailer's growth into smaller Chinese markets and is one of more than 23 new store openings nationwide this year, according to a statement on December 10 from Wal-Mart China.

"Wal-Mart has invested 1.7 billion yuan (US$230 million) in China since opening its first store in 1996, and directly buys around $9 billion of goods a year from mainland factories, importing over 6,600 categories of U.S. products into its mainland retail network," Nikita Huang, senior public relations manager of Wal-Mart China, told Emerging China.

Wal-Mart entered China in 1996, opening its first Chinese Supercenter in Shenzhen. Currently Wal-Mart operates three store formats in China, Supercenters, Sam's Clubs and Neighborhood Markets, according to Huang.

"China is the world's third-largest retail market, with an average annual sales growth of over 10 percent. However, the market here is still fragmented and highly regionalized. China's top 100 retailers as a whole accounted for only 10 per cent of market share, which means there is huge growth potential," said Huang.

"Having witnessed cities like Beijing and Shanghai become truly world-class and cosmopolitan destinations in recent years, it is very exciting for us to see the growth and promise of China's smaller cities. And as first-tier markets are becoming more saturated, we are eager to grow in these smaller markets in order to bring more Chinese customers the product assortment and value they deserve," Huang added.

As one of the local competitors, Wuhan Zhongbai Group Co. Ltd. said at a statement on December 18, "At present, domestic retailers can not confront foreign giant retail groups for a while, they've already had complete and advanced inner management and control system, which could improve the profitability extensively."

But for our future development, we do have the local advantages, handy resources and convenient distributions nationwide; meanwhile we need to focus on forwarding the decentralized strategy to the target market to enhance our capacity, according to the statement.

At present, Wal-Mart has 95 stores open in China, including 90 Supercenters, three Sam's Clubs, and two Neighborhood Markets.