7-Eleven Inc, the globe’s largest convenience retailer with roughly 60,000 stores in 18 countries and regions, has announced the opening of its first store in Viet Nam next week.

According to a recent post on the company’s Facebook page, the first store in Viet Nam will be opened on June 15 at the Saigon Trade Centre, 37 Ton Duc Thang, District 1 in HCM City.

Its entry into the country was earlier than a Nikkei’s forecast that 7-Eleven could enter Viet Nam as early as February 2018.

In November last year, in an online recruitment website in Viet Nam, 7-Eleven was seeking a quality assurance manager, a fresh food associate and a marketing associate.

In mid-2015, its US-based subsidiary 7-Eleven Inc, owned by the Seven & I Holdings Group, clinched a licensing agreement with Seven System Vietnam, established by IFB Holdings, which currently runs the Pizza Hut chain and other eateries in Viet Nam, to open the first 7-Eleven store in the country.

With Viet Nam being the 19th country where 7-Eleven will have a presence, Seven & I Holdings plans to have 100 stores in the first three years and 1,000 after a decade.

According to Nikkei, 7-Eleven, the No 1 player in Japan’s convenience store market, will dispatch four employees to Viet Nam to help local staffers develop unique products, such as lunch and prepared foods, and to choose store locations.

It will also help develop a distribution network that will enable shipping of products at optimal temperatures.

7-Eleven in Viet Nam will provide fresh food, beverages, and high-quality consumption goods to compete with its rivals. Seven & I Holdings seeks to expand in Viet Nam by applying a business model cultivated at home. — VNS