Vingroup has acquired 87 Vietnamese Shop&Go convenience stores for just US$1.
Vingroup’s retail arm VinCommerce, which manages Vinmart supermarkets and Vinmart+ convenience stores, will upgrade infrastructure, staff and goods at the acquired stores by the end of next month.
According to a VinCommerce statement, Shop&Go made the approach and offered to sell itself.
“The competition is more intense than we imagined; that is why we’ve decided to leave,” a Shop&Go spokesperson said, admitting Vietnamese retail market still has potential for growth.
“We have sold our stores to Vingroup so it can continue to develop them.”
Opened in 2006, Shop&Go was one of the earliest convenience store chains in Vietnam.
By 2016, it had aggregated losses of almost VND205 billion (US$8.81 million).
VinCommerce runs 108 VinMart supermarkets and 1900 VinMart+ convenience stores.
Last year, it acquired supermarket chain Fivimart with 23 outlets.
In a report last year, Nielsen Vietnam observed a rise in visits by Vietnamese to convenience stores. The average shopper uses a convenience store 4.5 times per month – three times the frequency of 2010.
