E-Mart opens 4th Korean hypermarket in Ulaanbaatar

South Korea’s top supermarket chain E-Mart Inc. launched its fourth hypermarket in Ulaanbaatar on Thursday with a stronger push for Korean brands and products amid the growing popularity of K-pop and drama series in Mongolia, the company said on the same day.

The new big-box store in the capital of Mongolia benchmarked the design of the E-Mart in the Yeonsu District of Incheon, Korea, which reopened in March of this year after renovation. The fourth branch includes a large-scale supermarket as well as fashion stores, a bookstore, a food court, franchise restaurants and a childrens’ café, which combines a café for parents and an indoor playground.

It also includes Korean fast fashion brand Top Ten’s second store in Mongolia, as well as the first Korean fried chicken and burger fast-food Mom’s Touch’s restaurant there.

The food court offers ready-to-eat Korean food like kimbap and tteokbokki which are popular among young consumers in Mongolia. The supermarket will sell potato chips, butter cookies, rice crackers and wet wipes under E-Mart’s private label No Brand.

No Brand’s revenue in Mongolia for the first seven months of this year increased 58% on-year. E-Mart, a unit of Korean retail giant Shinsegae Group, expects such fast growth to boost exports of No Brand product manufacturers, all Korean small and mid-sized enterprises.

E-Mart launched its first hypermarket in Ulaanbaatar in 2016 via a partnership with Mongolian conglomerate Altai Holdings LLC and opened the second and third ones in the city in 2017 and 2019, respectively. The Korean hypermarket giant receives royalties from Altai for sales of brands and products and store operation strategies.

“E-Mart will provide a new shopping experience for local consumers in Korean-style hypermarkets and increase the number of the big-box stores in Mongolia. We aim to make it a shopping mecca in the capital,” said an E-Mart official.

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

Jihyun Kim edited this article.