Miniso unveils major global expansion plans

Chinese retail lifestyle brand Miniso plans to extensively expand its global network by opening 900 to 1,100 stores per year in the coming five years as part of an ambitious brand development strategy, according to its top executive.

"Between 550 and 650 of the newly opened stores will be located overseas," said Ye Guofu, founder and CEO of Miniso, during an interview with China Daily in Shanghai recently.

According to Ye, the company has charted key targets in the five years between 2024 and 2028, including adding between 900 and 1,100 new stores across the world, reaching a compound annual growth rate of at least 20 percent in revenue, as well as having more than half of its annual GMV (gross merchandise value) by IP products.

Since its establishment in 2013, the Guangzhou-based company has opened 7,000 stores globally as of the end of June, including 2,753 stores overseas.

"Our global development was rapid in the first half, as 455 new stores were opened globally, with 266 of them beyond China," said Liu Xiaobin, vice-president and chief marketing officer of Miniso.

According to Liu, opening chain stores in iconic landmarks such as Times Square in New York, Oxford Street in London, and the Champs-Elysees in Paris has greatly enhanced the company's awareness among global consumers.

"Based on our analysis and estimation on markets in Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America and Oceania, there is spacious expansion room for opening thousands of stores in the future," said Kou Weixuan, vice-president and chief growth officer of Miniso.

The projection is based on key elements of macro data, commercial space and multidimensional brands among others, Kou said.

Going global has shifted from being an option to a must for Chinese enterprises, and a rising number of Chinese brands are favored by overseas consumers, reported local news portal ThePaper.cn citing a report on China's top 50 global brands jointly conducted by Kantar and Google.

Despite a global economic slowdown, the top 50 Chinese brands saw their overall brand power grow 17 percent year-on-year, demonstrating strong vitality and competitiveness in the global market, said the report, which is in its eighth edition.

Ye said Miniso takes a differentiated strategy in exploring overseas markets compared to what they did in domestic development.

"As long as we can ensure the localization of talent, products and marketing, our business performance will win local consumers," Ye said. "Attending to the preferences of specific markets, we have launched differentiated products accordingly. In North America for example, a large proportion of our products have adapted to US tastes and developed jointly with local suppliers."

While achieving quality development in its global expansion, Miniso is expecting to embed Chinese innovation into IP development, according to Ye.

"We strive to become a top IP design retail group, and we are going to introduce 100 Chinese IPs to the world in the coming decade," Ye said.

Since the company launched an IP strategy in 2016, Miniso has reached collaboration with 150 IPs with global reputation to date, and the company's IP products sales (in terms of gross merchandise value) surpass 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) per year, said Dou Na, executive vice-president and chief merchandising officer of Miniso.

"We launch more than 10,000 IP products on an annual basis, and more than 800 million IP products have been sold worldwide to date," Dou said.