MOSCOW, October 27. /TASS/. X5 Retail Group will open a chain of hard discount stores under the Chizik brand name, which will include 45-50 stores in 2021, the Group’s Strategy Director Vladimir Salakhutdinov said on Tuesday. He was speaking at the Investor’s Day event.
"Hard discount stores are stores with prices, which are lower than in conventional discounters, with small sales area, minimum staff and minimum assortment. These are stores in a 'hard discounter' format. They will start opening this week. The first store will open on Dolgoprudnaya Street in Moscow on Thursday. Although we will open only a few pilot stores this year, we plan to develop the chain up to 45-50 stores next year," Salakhutdinov said. According to him, the assortment of stores will not exceed 800 unique items.
"This will not be the case at the start, but in the future we will reach these figures. These are also small stores of 200-250 square meters," Salakhutdinov added.
X5 Retail Group N.V. operates several retail formats: the chain of proximity stores under the Pyaterochka brand, the supermarket chain under the Perekrestok brand and the hypermarket chain under the Karusel brand. As of 30 September 2019, X5 had 15,752 company-operated stores. The company added 492 net new stores in Q3 2019.