Forbes ranks Lotte Shopping as world’s 6th largest retailer

Lotte Shopping, Korea’s leading retail group, said Monday that it has been ranked the sixth-largest retailer worldwide by Forbes Magazine, joining the ranks of global top sellers.

The Korean company runs chains of Lotte Department Store, Lotte Mart and Lotte Super. Tied with Chile’s Falabella, it ranked higher than U.S. giants such as Sears and Nordstrom and Japan’s Isetan Mitsukoshi.

Forbes has been publishing an annual ranking of the world’s top 2,000 listed firms since 2003, the “Forbes Global 2,000.” Grading is based on criteria ― sales, profit, assets and market value.

In Forbes’ calculation, Lotte recorded $21.1 billion in assets, $13.7 billion in sales, $614.1 million in net profit, $11 billion in market capitalization as of April. The department store category was launched this year. PPR of France topped the list, followed by Kohl’s and Macy’s of the U.S. and Aeon of Japan. Lotte moved up 46 notches in the general list to No. 586 this year.

The Forbes list shows that the company has already secured its goal to join the top 10 global retailers by 2018, which was set in 2009. It is now targeting the global top five, Lotte said.

“Lotte is growing to become a remarkable company by consolidating internally and externally and taking social responsibility that accompanies,” said Lee Chul-woo, chief executive of Lotte Shopping.

“All our employees will continue to challenge and make efforts to become a global industry leader.”

To secure robust growth, the retailer has been rapidly expanding its operations into developing countries with its retail expertise and business networks over the past few years, while helping them promote social welfare.

Currently, Lotte runs department stores in Moscow, Beijing and Tianjin, China. It plans to raise the portion of sales from abroad to 25 percent until 2018 by launching 20 branches in China and additional 20 in Vietnam, Russia and India collectively.

By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)