Lawson Inc, Japan’s second largest convenience store chain, plans to increase the number of its “Lawson” stores outside of Japan to 3,000 over the next five years, said Sadanobu Takemasu, the company’s president and COO.
The company has a total of 12,355 Lawson convenience stores in Japan and 800 branches internationally as of March 2016, and plans to increase the number of domestic outlets to 15,000 by 2019.
Out of the 3,000 stores targeted outside of Japan, 500 are slated for Thailand, where it operates under the name Lawson 108.
“Thailand is one of our strategic markets, given that it has a population of 70 million but only 10,000 convenient stores of every brand operating nationwide,” said Takemasu.
From 2017 to 2020, the company plans to open 100 additional stores in Thailand per year. Apart from Thailand, Lawson also has convenience stores abroad in China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Hawaii.
(Source: Bangkok Post)