Best Buy, the world’s largest electronics retailer by sales, is closing all of its branded stores in China, highlighting the resistance of Chinese shoppers to some western-style store experiences.
The retailer, which will continue to run 170 stores in China under the Five Star brand acquired five years ago, is also giving up an attempt to enter Turkey, with the closure of two trial-run stores opened in the past two years.
The company said in a statement that it would close all nine China stores that carry the Best Buy brand, one of the best known US retail marques, but one that has failed to catch on in China. It captured less than 1 per cent of the China market, analysts said, struggling to compete against the more agile and aggressive homegrown rivals Gome and Suning, which each have more than 1,000 branded stores in China.