Executive Summary

The wave of globalization is everywhere and the food retail industry is not spared. Hypermarkets such as Tesco and Carrefour have long been in existence and is rapidly making its presence felt in further expansion plans in the Asia Pacific region. Started in North and America and Europe, hypermarkets became the dominant retail grocery today. Consumers’ expectations for ease in grocery shopping, together with the increased of car ownership made shopping in big supermarkets a trend to last for a long time to come. With higher income and change in lifestyles, coupled with an increasing middle income group – it has opened a whole new market for the retail chain industry. Due to the saturated local market, hypermarkets are bent on expansion in finding new markets internationally. Even though governments have opened up their economies to foreign players, there are rules and regulations imposed on new players in order to protect their own local retail industries. Global retail industry has come a long way since commencement. Worldwide retail sales is now valued at $USD7 trillion (Source: Deloitte :2003). Invention of bar-coding system enables stores to manage tens of thousands of items and also assisted in ‘Just-In-Time’ store replenishment system. This report would explain the emerging markets to be tapped, and the different opportunities and threats faced by the entrants; various rules and regulations imposed by the local government in which hypermarkets operates and more importantly how the hypermarkets adopt and adapt to the local environment to gain acceptance and loyalty from the consumers. Subsequently, retail industry growth in the new markets, especially in the Asia region would be discussed, backed by the new corporate strategy that the top level management is implementing.

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