Metro, a diversified retail and wholesale/cash and carry group based in Germany, plans to take its store count in China to more than 100 over the next three to four years in a bid to occupy a bigger niche in the world’s second largest economy.

Metro had just added a business-to-business online store to its portfolio of hypermarkets and consumer electronics stores which total 52 in 37 Chinese cities.

“Hopefully by using e-commerce, we will be able to enlarge our customer base and increase sales,” Feng Liu, an executive with Metro China.

Metro competes in the Asian tiger with US retailer Walmart and French retailer Carrefour.

Steady growth is predicted for the hypermarket sector in China, which according to market research firm Euromonitor, will grow by 10.1 per cent annually until 2015.

GB