Walmart to invest $1.2b in China

Walmart plans to invest 8 billion yuan ($1.2 billion) in China over the next 10 years to upgrade logistics, the US retail giant said on its social media account.

The company will also set up or renovate more than 10 logistics centres in the country.

The comments followed a meeting between President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping over the weekend in Osaka, Japan that rekindled hope for a US-China trade deal. Walmart has been pushing to integrate its retail network in China with the country’s burgeoning “smart retail” movement, as retailers and tech giants such as Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings cut deals to combine online and high-street shopping.

In China, the company last year opened its first small high-tech supermarket, where smartphones can be used to pay for items that are mostly available on the US retailer’s store on online platform JD Daojia, an affiliate of JD.com.

Walmart operates a number of formats in China, including hypermarket, Sam’s Club and Walmart supermarket, with 400 retail units covering more than 180 cities nationwide. Last month, French retailer Carrefour agreed to sell 80% of its Chinese operations to electronics retailer Suning.com for 620 million euros.

Meanwhile, Walmart has discussed the potential sale of its unprofitable clothing brands Bonobos and Modcloth with buyers, online news portal Vox reported on Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The world’s largest retailer bought a bunch of clothing brands including Bonobos and Modcloth in 2017 and Eloquii last year to appeal to younger shoppers in its effort to compete with Amazon.com.

Reuters