Time Warner Inc.'s studio division Warner Bros. plans to open some 200 stores
in China over the coming years as demand for branded merchandise increases in
China, the Chinese partner of the firm's consumer products unit said on Sunday.
Warner Bros. opened its first Chinese mainland store in Shanghai on Sunday,
which is operated by a subsidiary of ports-to-telecoms conglomerate Hutchison
Whampoa Ltd.'s toy production unit Hutchison Harbour Ring.
"In the long run, we would like to open no less than 200 stores. During the
next few years, we would like to make 200 as a target," Michelle Chan, Hutchison
Harbour Ring's managing director, told a press briefing.
The companies plan to open the stores in Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and
Macau, starting off in Shanghai's commercial centers and moving on to other
cities such as Beijing, and southern China's Guangzhou and Shenzhen, Chan said.
China's growing population of consumers with excess cash to spend has
attracted the likes of Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co. to China, as they
look to cash in on the growing popularity of their trademark characters like
Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny.
Disney already sells its merchandise in the Chinese mainland through some 2,600 retail
spaces in larger stores like Carrefour, and aims to increase the number of such
shops to about 6,000 by 2009.
Warner, Disney and their competitors are all chasing a China market where
consumers are expected to spend about $12.5 billion on toys by 2010, driven by
the country's 300 million children below the age of 14, according to official
forecasts.
Warner Bros. hopes that consumer demand for their merchandise will
increase as more licensed products become available in the Chinese market, and
says knock-off products have already helped consumers to get familiar with their
characters.
"The best testimony we can have to the popularity of our characters is that
manufacturers desire to put those characters onto merchandise," said Jeffrey
Whalen, senior vice president with Warner Bros.' consumer products unit.