Retail giants seek new revenue engines in India, Southeast Asia

Lotte Wellfood's Choco Pie is featured in a commercial in India. Courtesy of Lotte Wellfood Lotte, Shinsegae in dire need of reducing reliance on Korea By Lee Min-hyung Lotte Group and Shinsegae Group are expanding into India and Southeast Asia to reduce their reliance on the Korean market, as the country faces weakening domestic consumption. The two retail giants view these regions as key growth areas, citing their underdeveloped retail infrastructure and growing purchasing power among consumers there.

Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin recently embarked on a business trip to India for the first time in nine years. Lotte Wellfood, the confectionery arm of the group, operates its India branch and is witnessing rapidly rising sales. Shin is widely expected to inspect its confectionery production lines there and seek measures to boost sales for the firm’s Pepero chocolate sticks.



Lotte Wellfood is estimated to have chalked up sales of some 290 billion won ($19.8 million) in India last year on the popularity of the retailer’s diverse snacks, such as Choco Pie, and other food products. The figure is also expected to rise to more than 300 billion won this year.

Shinsegae Group is also placing its strategic focus on widening the number of stores for its two major brands — E-Mart and No Brand — in Southeast Asia, in an effort to tackle dwindling domestic demand. Shinsegae Department Store's headquarters in Seoul / Yonhap In December 2024, E-Mart opened its No Brand discount chain store for the first time in Laos and shared plans to open some 20 stores there over the next five years. For major retailers like Shinsegae, the country is seen as a land of opportunity due to the region’s weak retail infrastructure.

The group operates 16 No Brand branches in the Philippines and plans to add more stores due to the country’s demographic growth potential. Shinsegae Department Store plans to open its first Factory Store, an outlet store brand, in Laos sometime before the first half of 2025. Under this strategy, it aims to boost sales by attracting young customers with a keen interest in Korean fashion and culture.

“Retail firms have long pushed for their expansion into overseas markets, such as China, but their efforts did not generate any meaningful returns due to reasons such as political risks. But they have no choice but to keep finding the next stable revenue areas abroad due to the saturation in the home territory,” an official from a retail firm said. E-Mart sought to expand into China by opening its first store in 1997, but the discount store chain ended up withdrawing its business in 2017.

Lotte also jumped into the Chinese market in 2008 and widened the number of its Lotte Mart stores to more than 100. However, the company also gave up its China business in 2018 amid then-escalating political discord between Korea and China. According to data from Statistics Korea, retail sales in Korea fell by 2.

2 percent last year compared to the previous year, extending a three-year losing streak..