Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The race for domestic retail market share washeating up as local and foreign firms looked to expand their networks,experts said.

At a recent meeting in HCM City, Truong Cong Thang, general director ofVinCommerce Company, told partners that the retailer wanted to open nearly10,000 stores and more than 300 Vinmart supermarkets in the next five years.

In addition, the company also plans to attract 100 strategic partners withan ambition to lead the Vietnamese retail market. The company’s financialreport showed that in the first nine months of the year, revenue reached 23.6trillion VND, posting a 56.5 percent year-on-year increase.

Meanwhile, Saigon Co.op is looking at expanding its network to at least2,000 stores and annual average revenue growth of 8-10 percent in the nextfive years.

It has already opened 849 stores in 43 provinces and cities that attract 350,000customers a day, up 26 percent compared to five years ago.

Anotherleading retailer in HCM City, Satra, said that they targeted to havefive Satramart supermarkets and four malls by 2025, and depending on themarket situation, 150-250 Satra branded stores.

Local retail giants are looking to expand their market share in theface of fierce competition from big foreign investors such as Aeon, Lotte,Big C and Mega Market.

The latest example is in October 2020, Japan's largest retailer cosmeticschain Matsumoto Kiyoshi opened its first store in HCM City.

In July 2020, leading Japanese retailer Muji also opened a store in HCM City.Japanese fashion retailer Uniqlo, launched its first store last year.

Japanese retailer Aeon is also surveying a third shopping mall in HCM Cityin 2021, and plans to have 25 shopping malls in Vietnam by 2025with a capital source of 2 billion USD for the investment.

Hirai Shinji, chief representative of JETRO HCM City (Japan External TradeOrganisation) was quoted as saying by Thoibao Kinh Doanh that after the COVID-19 pandemic and the marketwas gradually recovering, it was a favourable time for Japanese retail groupsto open in Vietnam.

This would lead to fiercer competition, the experts said.

It was also important to note the efforts of domestic retailers to expandtheir systems into neighbouring areas of big cities, as urbanisation andincomes in these areas had been increasing.

Expertssaid that although retail sales were concentrated in major cities and key economicregions, with the high speed of urbanisation, these areas would become thedriving force for growth instead of existing big cities.

As a result, many domestic retailers had been gradually expanding toareas surrounding the big cities. The evidence is quite clearfrom data showing that suburban stores brought in more revenue withhigher growth than inner cities.

According to retail expert Nguyen Van Thinh, the number of supermarkets in 2020had been decreased by 20 percent compared to 2019 - from 336 to 330. Thisdecrease mainly came from Vinmart.

Meanwhile, the number of convenience stores has marked a growth of 60 percent -from 2,495 in 2019 to 5,228 stores in 2020. This came from Vinmart and BachHoa Xanh.

Small stores recorded a slight increase in 2020, while shopping centres posteda growth rate of about 11 percent from 96 centres in 2019 to 107 in 2020.

Thinh said that although there were many changes in 2020, Vietnam was still oneof the most attractive retail markets in the world, and competition in themarket was becoming more and more intense.

For some brands, it was an increase in the number of stores, others had toface restructuring, he said./.