After Carrefour and Tesco, Auchan in turn is throwing in the towel in China.
The Covid inflicted the coup de grace on the Chinese adventure of the northern group launched with fanfare in 1999 in Shanghai.
Twenty years later, a number of Western brands have left the former El Dorado, like the American Forever 21.
This new departure from the track symbolizes the two relentless trends at work for several years in this market, more competitive than ever, exacerbated by the pandemic: digitization and concentration for the benefit of increasingly powerful local players, attacking ultra-connected consumers.
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In China, a tense business climate for Europeans
The advent of a new Chinese technological ecosystem from the 2010s, around WeChat messaging or the Alipay payment system, revolutionized the sector, signing the inexorable decline of shopping centers, which have become ghost carcasses in many medium-sized cities.
In large metropolises, only
high-end
shopping malls
survive.
The smartphone screen becomes
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