E-Mart’s convenience store chain Emart24 has opened its first store in Singapore, becoming the first Korean convenience store chain to operate in the city state amid the retailer’s push for overseas expansion.
The first store is located in the Jurong Point shopping centre, west of Singapore. The second store is set to open Saturday in Nex Mall, a shopping mall in the city’s northeastern region.
A joint venture company called Emart24 Singapore Pte Ltd will operate Emart24 convenience stores through a master franchise agreement, it said.
Singapore-based food and beverage giant Fei Siong Group is one of the investors in the joint venture, the South Korean retailer said.
The two stores will focus on Korean-style fast foods and ready-to-eat meals, such as tteokbokki and gimbab, seaweed rice rolls with vegetables. The retailer plans to add up to 300 stores over the next five years, it said.
Singapore is the second country for Emart24 to enter after it opened its first convenience store in Malaysia in June last year.
Further reading, earlier this year, Emart disclosed its plan to open 20 hypermarkets in Vietnam by 2026 and generate US$1 billion in sales, becoming the hypermarket chain with the largest market share in the country.