Warner Bros is to open at least 200 stores in China over the next few years, the firm's consumer products partner Hutchison Harbour Ring has announced. The first store opened in Shanghai on Sunday and it will soon be joined by other Warner outlets in the city, as well as in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Rival group Disney already has 2,600 retail outlets across the country and plans to boost this number to 6,000 by 2009. Warner Bros, the studio division of Time Warner, is chasing a slice of the US$12.5 billion that Chinese consumers are expected to spend on toys by 2010. Driving this spending is a pool of 300 million children aged below 14. However, retail efforts are likely to be hampered by the widespread availability of fake products.
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