Intime to open 30 stores in next 3 years

An executive of Intime Department Store (Group) Co Ltd said on Tuesday in Beijing that it will open another 30 stores in the next three years in a move designed to make the company a national chain.

“We will open around six stores next year and, by the end of 2015, our target is to have 60 stores in China,” Chen Xiaodong, executive director and chief executive officer of Intime, told China Daily.

Chen said the new stores will be located in second- and third-tier cities in both department stores and shopping centers.

Intime opened its first store in Hangzhou in 1998. Now the group has 30 stores nationwide. Of those in department stores, 19 are located in Zhejiang province, six are in Hubei, two in Beijing, one in Anhui, one in Hebei and two in Shaanxi.

Earlier this year, the Hong Kong-listed company released its performance report for the first half of 2012. Intime's revenue increased by 20.1 percent year-on-year to 1.87 billion yuan ($0.3 billion) in the first half of 2012. Its net profit increased by 13.7 percent year-on-year to 547 million yuan. Its sales income increased by 18.5 percent year-on-year to 6.59 billion yuan. Its sales of individual stores increased by 9.2 percent.

According to the report, Intime said the sales increase was mainly down to the growth of sales at specific stores. At the same time, the good performance of newly opened stores also contributed to the growth. In addition, rental income was a major part of Intime's income. During the first half of 2012, Intime's rental income was 150 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 68.2 percent.