DUBAI: Lulu Group International, the Middle East's largest organized retail chain, has announced that it is on track with its expansion plans.
The group said it had 91 hypermarkets and smaller stores planned for opening between 2020 and 2023, making it one of the few retail groups to expand during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This brings the total number of hypermarkets, shopping malls, and fulfillment centers in the GCC, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Egypt to 235.
“Despite continued headwinds including COVID-19 and other challenges, we have continued to expand our operations across the world; we never stopped growing,” Nandakumar Vijayan, Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications at Lulu Group International, said at the RetailME Tech & Marcoms Summit held in Dubai.Lulu Group opened nine hypermarkets and two stores in 2020 and 24 hypermarkets and three stores at the height of the pandemic in 2021, according to Vijayan. So far in 2022, they have opened 14 hypermarkets and one store, with 11 more set to open by the end of the year.
“We are going to open 11 more hypermarkets this year and a further 27 hypermarkets and stores next year,” he continued.
The company typically invests around Dh125 million ($34 billion) in each hypermarket.
Lulu Group also has sourcing and regional offices in the US, UK, China, Turkey, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, South Africa and Uganda and employs 57,000 people worldwide.
It has also partnered with the UAE government to support the UAE's food security program by supplying foodstuffs and consumer goods at low prices in order to protect UAE consumers from inflationary pressures.
