Seven & I Expands North American Presence

7-Eleven’s parent company is planning to double its North American locations to at least 20,000.

June 05, 2013

TOKYO – Seven & I Holdings Co., which operates 7-Eleven convenience stores, has big plans for the future, including increasing its North American locations by twofold, Bloomberg reports. The company “could increase our store number (in North America) to 20,000 or even 30,000,” said Toshifumi Suzuki, chairman of the company in Japan. Currently, 7-Eleven has more than 8,000 locations in North America. Suzuki gave no time period for when or for how long the expansion plans would take.

Seven & I has been snapping up small convenience store chains in the United States as a way of improving its store competition. Consumer spending and business investment are up, indicating a strengthening of the U.S. economy, which has analysts predicting growth for the channel. 

“There will be a huge potential in expansion in large cities in the U.S.,” said Dairo Murata, an analyst at JPMorgan Securities Japan Co. “There are over 50,000 convenience stores in Japan, with (a population of) 120 million people. Considering the U.S. population is about 300 million, there is . . . unlimited potential.” 

In 2012, Seven & I purchased more than 650 North American convenience stores. “We will raise the quality of operations, and we will go into the areas where we don’t have outlets,” said Suzuki. 

Last year, Seven & I held a 24% market share in the U.S. convenience store industry. The closest competitor in terms of market share is Circle K with 1.6% and The Pantry with 0.1%.

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