S.Korea's E-mart24 opens 3rd branch in Singapore

South Korea’s convenience store chain E-mart24 has opened its third store in Singapore featuring the city-state's hawker culture, aiming for localization and promotion of Korean cuisine through a convenience food corner.

The franchise's parent company E-Mart Inc. on Wednesday said it opened the day before a branch at the shopping mall Sky Residence @ Dawson near the metro rail transit station Queenstown. The chain's first two branches in Singapore were opened inside large shopping malls, but the latest is located within an apartment complex in a residential area.

Unlike its previous strategy of targeting shoppers from all over Singapore, E-mart24 is seeking to enter the daily lives of residents.

The biggest attraction of the third store is its use of Singapore's hawker culture. To compete with nearby restaurants, the branch utilizes the common eating space at the center of a shopping district under the concept of a convenience store specializing in food and beverage (F&B).

The branch also has a bigger South Korean section, with nearly half of the space featuring an instant food corner with foods like tteokbokki (spicy rice cake), cup rice and dakgangjeong (fried chicken in sweet and spicy sauce) and a space to cook instant ramen. Ready-to-eat convenience food needing no preparation such as gimbap (seaweed rice roll), side dishes and sikhye (sweet rice punch) are also stocked in large quantities.

With the goal of opening 300 branches in Singapore within five years, E-mart24 in December last year became South Korea’s first convenience store chain to enter the city-state. Under the master franchise method of receiving royalties from a host country company, it entered the market through a joint venture with F&B specialist Fei Siong Group and other investors.

With a population of just five million, Singapore has a small market compared to its far more populous neighbors, but its number of convenience stores of one per 8,500 people shows its huge growth potential in the sector. Plus its per capita GDP ranks fifth in the world, meaning individual purchasing power is very high.

Write to Young Chan Song at 0full@hankyung.com