Walmart (WMT.NYSE) announced it is reaching out to lower-income and rural Chinese consumers with a new "compact hypermarket" format that was originally developed in its Latin American markets, the Financial Times reported. Doug McMillon, chief executive of Walmart’s international business, said that compared with the US retailer’s larger supercenters, the bare-bones hypermarket is "a smaller store, typically a cheaper physical plant; a cement floor, perhaps brick walls, sometimes we don’t have air conditioning." The company opened a 37,000 square foot Trustmart store last month in Zhang Shu in Jiangxi province, the first of a series of new hypermarket stores. Walmart plans to eventually open 300 in China. McMillon added that because the operating costs of Walmart’s hypermarkets are less, prices are also lower than in its supercenters.
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