WITH millions of consumers at stake, global retail giants Carrefour and Wal-Mart are battling it out for market share in China with aggressive expansion plans aimed at opening ever more stores.

Last year, the heavyweight retailers broke their own records, with the French giant opening 23 new hypermarkets in China and U.S.-based Wal-Mart cutting the ribbon at nearly 30.

“This is a very high rate, we have never done this anywhere in the world,” said Eric Legros, CEO of Carrefour China, which posted market-leading numbers in 2007 with 30 billion yuan (US$4.2 billion dollars) in revenue.

“Wal-Mart China has had very aggressive growth in the last few years and... we anticipate the core numbers will continue to escalate,” said Terrence Cullen, Wal-Mart vice president of development in China.

Both retail giants have built more than 100 hypermarkets — stores that boast at least 5,000 square meters of floor space — during their 10-year battle for market share in China.

Besides serving relatively wealthy clientele in the large cities of Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, the two retailers have also expanded into less prosperous regions in central and western China.

While Carrefour has opened a store in Urumqi in China’s westernmost Xinjiang region that borders on Central Asia, Wal-Mart in December opened its 100th superstore in the city of Loudi in Henan Province.

“First-tier cities are obviously a very important marketplace, but they are becoming very saturated,” said Shawn Gray, Wal-Mart vice president of operations.

“The second and third-tier cities present a very good growth opportunity for Wal-Mart in China and we will, where appropriate, expand into these markets.”

Legros said nearly 40 percent of Carrefour stores were in secondary regions in China.

“Since the beginning we have developed stores in both the richer coastal zones as well as in the interior zones, where urbanization trends are stronger,” Legros said. “This has allowed us to build our expansion toward the future.”

Carrefour is also looking to expand through the acquisition of other retail chains, as Wal-Mart did early last year when it acquired a 35 percent share in 101 Trust-Mart stores owned by a Taiwan retailer.

Legros said Carrefour prioritized growth of its own business, rather than acquisition of others.

“But we will look at all opportunities and the day that something interesting presents itself we will take it, because we feel we are solid enough to do that,” he said.

The expansion of the two global chains has also come against stiff local competition from the likes of Wu-Mart in the region around Beijing and of Lianhua in the Shanghai area.

“The competition in China also includes some giant local retailers who are extremely powerful,” Legros said. (SD-Agencies)