With the opening of its biggest Asian flagship store in Beijing, as well as double-digit year-on-year growth in 2013, Max Mara’s CEO sees no reason to change its expansion strategy in China.
The Italian luxury fashion house, founded in 1951 by Achille Maramotti, has opened 320 stores in mainland China in the fourteen years since entering the Chinese market. Its first store opened through a local distributor in Beijing’s China World Mall in 1999. In 2009, Max Mara created a joint venture with GBMax limited to further its expansion in China, and currently plans to add 25 to 35 stores per year in the country. Many of these stores are in China’s second and third-tier cities.
Because Max Mara is privately held, it doesn’t need to deliver growth every quarter to appease investors. Instead, it can be patient. The company’s approach to China is to respect creativity and to invest accordingly.
(Source: red luxury)