US Apparel Giant GAP Rio Tinto Wants To Open 7 Stores In The Chinese Market

23 months after officially entering the Chinese market, the United States

The retail chain giant GAP (Gai Pu) began to accelerate its development in China to catch up with its competitors, Spain ZARA and Sweden Hennes&Mauritz (H&M), which first came to China.

"By January 2013, GAP will have 46 stores in China."

Yang Deming, President of GAP Greater China, told reporters at the first China (Shenzhen) brand chain Summit Forum.

The casual clothing business, which was born in 1969, is loved by the salaried people in the United States.

In 70s, it was called the only profitable clothing store in talk shows.

GAP is

One of the biggest clothing companies.

When the company was founded in 1969, there were only a handful of employees.

Now, it is a multinational company with three brands, more than 4200 chain stores, an annual income of over 13 billion dollars, and 165 thousand employees.

The voice of the economy commentator Kuang Jie recalled the experience of buying direct selling stores in the United States, and lamented that GAP did not sell very well.

In this way, in the past 23 months, GAP has developed 32 stores in the Chinese market with the expansion rate of 1.4 stores per month, and in the next 2 months, the opening speed of GAP will be increased to 7 stores a month.

Chen Zhi, chairman of the Greater China shopping mall alliance, believes that although the time to enter the Chinese market is slower, GAP, the leading brand of the industry, still has huge opportunities for development in China. "Therefore, accelerating the pace of opening stores has become the most urgent thing for GAP at this stage."

Chen Zhi said.

Yang Deming said that in the past few years, GAP has mainly sought opportunities for development in the international market.

5 years ago, 87% of GAP sales came from the US market, while international sales accounted for only 13%.

Yang Deming disclosed that this proportion will become 70:30 by 2015, the US market will account for 70%, and the international market will account for 30%.

From the perspective of GAP's expansion in China, China may be one of its important markets to increase its international market share.

But now China

The market is not optimistic.

Yang Deming believes that GAP has entered China for a short time and is still in the stage of rapid expansion and is optimistic about the development potential of the Chinese market.

"Sales of stores are up to expectations."

Chen Chi also said that with strong brands and advanced management concepts to support, the development of GAP did not cause trouble for the development of local clothing brands.