What effect might Tesco Plc planned international expansion have on the countries in which it creates new outlet?
Throughout this investigation I will be investigating what effects might Tesco Plc planned international expansion have on the countries in which it creates new outlet? This is part of options 1 in module 5 & 6 for A2. I chose this question as I feel it would be interesting to investigate how Tesco Plc are expanding when there seems to be a limit on the amount they can expand further in the UK.
Who is Tesco Plc?
Tesco Plc is the UK's biggest supermarket chain with a market share of 29% compared to that of its rival Asda 17.1% and Sainsbury 15.9%. Tesco Plc's turnover for 2004 was £30,814 million with 80% of this coming from the UK alone, 9% coming from Asia and 12% from the rest of Europe2.
Tesco set out a four-part growth strategy seven years ago. This involves: core UK business, non-food, retailing services and international.
They have moved from being the number three domestic retailer in the UK to being one of the top three international retailers in the world with 2,318 stores and 326,000 people. They have stores in both Europe and Asia.
Stores in Europe (apart from UK) include:
Republic of Ireland (80)
Hungary (62)
Poland (69)
Czech Republic (22)
Slovakia (23)
Turkey (5)
Total number of stores = 261
Stores in Asia include:
Japan (78)
Malaysia (5)
South Korea (28)
Taiwan (4)
Thailand (64)
Total number of stores = 179
Why is Tesco Plc looking to expand internationally?
The major reason for Tesco wanting to expand internationally is that at the moment there appears to be little potential to expand further in Britain. One reason for this is that there is limited space to build new stores due to some extent, to green field sites. There is a further restriction for Tesco Plc to expand in the form of the Competition Commission . This was shown when Safeway was being