---
title: "Hema Steps on the Gas Again"
description: "On the last day of October, Hema opened 14 new stores under its Chaohesuan NB discount supermarket brand in core Yangtze River Delta cities, signaling another aggressive push into the community discount store sector. With over 350 stores nationwide, Hema is accelerating expansion to seize the lead in the booming hard discount market, competing against internet giants, foreign retailers, and traditional supermarket chains."
author: "吴文武"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2025-11-19"
categories: "Retail Formats"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/OGFbuaJ5Q8GHuuer-gFUWw"
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citation: "吴文武. “Hema Steps on the Gas Again.” New Distribution, 2025-11-19. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/hema-steps-on-the-gas-again-ffd30746/"
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# Hema Steps on the Gas Again

> On the last day of October, Hema opened 14 new stores under its Chaohesuan NB discount supermarket brand in core Yangtze River Delta cities, signaling another aggressive push into the community discount store sector. With over 350 stores nationwide, Hema is accelerating expansion to seize the lead in the booming hard discount market, competing against internet giants, foreign retailers, and traditional supermarket chains.

### **Source** | New Product Finance **ID** | nbscaijing Author | Wu Wenwu
Chaohesuan NB opened 14 new stores in a single day, clearly indicating that Hema is once again stepping on the gas. What is Hema's plan?
**Hema Steps on the Gas Again**
In 2025, the retail industry's speed race continues unabated. I noticed that on the last day of October, Hema, Alibaba's new retail brand, made a big move: its Chaohesuan NB brand opened 14 new stores in a single day. According to reports, these new stores are located in core Yangtze River Delta cities such as Shanghai, Nanjing, Ningbo, Suzhou, Huzhou, and Nantong, covering a wide market area. Although discount stores operate on a small-store model, a discount supermarket brand opening 14 new stores across multiple cities on the same day, creating a point-to-area effect, still generated industry news coverage.
In the past year or two, Hema, once under Alibaba's spotlight, has become unusually low-key. Even this year, with Alibaba's full recovery, Hema has not been as high-profile as Taobao Tmall, Ele.me, or Amap, but has instead become increasingly low-key. On one hand, Hema is applying the brakes: it first closed its X Membership Store business, then shut down its Hema Neighborhood self-pickup service. On the other hand, it is stepping on the gas, simultaneously developing Hema Fresh and Chaohesuan NB.
First, Hema continues to aggressively expand its Hema Fresh business. In 2024, Hema opened 72 stores nationwide, averaging one new store every five days, the fastest pace in five years. Hema also plans to open nearly 100 new stores in fiscal year 2025, entering dozens of new cities. In late October, Hema's Shenzhen Meilin store opened, and business was booming on the first day.
Second, on August 29 this year, Hema officially renamed its budget community discount supermarket Hema NB to Chaohesuan NB. On the same day, Hema opened 17 new Chaohesuan NB stores across 10 cities in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai. In my view, although this time Chaohesuan NB opened 14 new stores in one day, fewer than the number opened on the day of the brand name announcement, it sends an even clearer signal: Hema is stepping on the gas again, intensifying its focus on the community discount supermarket business.
According to Lianshang.com, as of October 31, Chaohesuan NB had over 350 stores nationwide. Given the current pace, the number of Chaohesuan NB stores is expected to grow rapidly in the future. Hema has long focused on its two core businesses, Hema Fresh and Chaohesuan NB, maintaining an aggressive expansion pace. With store numbers surging and revenue growing accordingly, Hema has directly entered the top three in the supermarket retail industry.
**Why Is Hema Aggressively Pushing Chaohesuan NB?**
So why is Hema aggressively pushing Chaohesuan NB in 2025, or at this particular time? To answer this, we need to look at Hema's internal business development strategy and goals. Although Hema has undergone ten years of development and explored many business models, including Hema Fresh, the current Chaohesuan NB, and the now-closed X Membership Store and Hema Neighborhood self-pickup services, overall, Hema has experienced a high-profile birth, enjoyed the dividends of the internet new retail wave, and also benefited from the consumption upgrade trend in previous years. Hema has successfully run its business model, forming its own playbook, particularly using internet thinking to operate supermarkets, which is a distinct label. Its supply chain management ecosystem has matured.
While maintaining its established store-opening pace for Hema Fresh, Chaohesuan NB has become the next key business focus. After the brand upgrade, Hema has continuously increased investment, leading to the current aggressive store-opening pace. An industry veteran told me that Hema's supply chain has achieved systematization and standardization, directly reaching supply chain sources, and can simultaneously meet the standard products and scale operation needs of both Hema Fresh and Chaohesuan NB stores.
Interestingly, Hema is a national supermarket brand with stores across the country, but in the past two years, it has focused heavily on the Yangtze River Delta market, stepping on the gas and opening stores at full throttle. The industry veteran said that the Yangtze River Delta is a battleground for China's retail industry, with intense competition, more like a large testing ground for retail. If a supermarket brand can successfully run its model in the Yangtze River Delta, it can quickly replicate and expand northward and southward.
From a broader market perspective, the Yangtze River Delta has a developed economy and strong consumption power, especially in second- and third-tier cities, and even county-level cities in lower-tier markets, which have considerable consumption capacity. In the overall industry context, the current retail market is showing increasingly diversified trends, with demand for high-end membership-based consumption, as well as traditional supermarkets, community retail, and the booming community discount product consumption. The retail market has both demand for quality consumption upgrades, but in the current economic and consumption environment, consumers are becoming more rational, and more consumers are choosing discount stores. This is why community discount stores and snack stores are booming.
In my view, Hema Fresh's earlier and accelerated push into lower-tier markets was to seize the opportunity for quality consumption demand and upgrades in those markets. Now, Hema is stepping on the gas to also race ahead in the community discount store wave, aiming to achieve brand scale first. According to the "2025 China Retail Industry Outlook" report, China's hard discount market exceeded 200 billion yuan in 2024, with a penetration rate of only 8%, indicating huge growth potential. Therefore, whether from the perspective of enterprise development stage and strategic goals, or industry development stage, market demand, and future segment prospects, Hema certainly wants to race ahead.
**The Discount Supermarket War: More Than Just Speed**
Hema is not the only company vigorously developing the community discount supermarket track. This year, competition in the discount supermarket track has been particularly fierce, with various market players entering and pressing the accelerator.
Overall, this year's discount supermarket players can be divided into several factions, each trying to tell its own new business story.
The first faction is the three internet giants targeting the community discount track. Besides Hema, backed by Alibaba, which is vigorously developing Chaohesuan NB, Meituan and JD.com are also coming on strong. JD.com has opened six JD Discount Supermarkets in Suqian, Zhuozhou, and Gu'an in Jiangsu and Hebei since August this year, clearly wanting to make its discount supermarket story as loud as its food delivery war in the first half of the year. Meituan's self-operated community supermarket brand Kuailehou is also continuously developing, aiming to become a new community retail supermarket brand.
The second faction is foreign supermarket brands, including both new entrants and established players. German discount supermarket brand Aldi, which entered the Chinese market in 2019, has expanded at an astonishing pace, opening 80 stores to date. Last month, Aldi China changed its leadership, with a new CEO taking over, signaling a potential push into the national market. Walmart China has also piloted and successfully run a new community store model in Shenzhen, opening four community stores and starting a full replication in Shenzhen. Walmart's community stores focus on serving communities, and although not explicitly labeled as community discount stores, quality at low prices is a core competitive advantage.
The third faction is traditional supermarket brands. To transform and break through, traditional supermarket brands are also increasing their efforts in community discount stores. For example, Wumart Group launched its Wumart Chaozhi discount store brand, opening six stores in Beijing on July 25 this year. These regional brands have advantages in their local markets, and their development momentum should not be underestimated.
Internet platforms are pushing discount supermarkets to tell new retail stories, traditional supermarkets are opening discount stores to transform and break through, and Walmart is doing community stores to seize this wave. Community stores are not a new concept; they evolve with the consumption environment and industry updates. Now many market players are focusing on community discount stores, and it's time to compete on store-opening speed.
However, in my view, despite the lively scene in the community discount store track, besides maintaining store-opening pace, there are more points worth attention.
First, on the surface, community discount stores compete on opening speed, but product types, especially private-label products, are crucial. Ultimately, it's a competition of supply chain capabilities.
Second, whether internet players or traditional supermarkets, each has advantages, but it's not easy for traditional supermarkets to do discount stores. Traditional supermarket supply chain thinking makes it difficult to operate discount stores well; they need to change their mindset.
Third, although the discount store track is lively, homogenization has already appeared. Therefore, each community discount supermarket player must create unique features.
Fourth, the market coverage of a city, district, or community is limited, and market capacity is also limited. Regardless of which discount supermarket or community supermarket brand reaches a certain number of stores, it easily falls into the trap of vicious competition and homogenization. This needs to be avoided.
In the end, this raging discount supermarket war is not just about speed; it's not just a rally, but a long-distance race.


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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 吴文武
- Published: 2025-11-19
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/hema-steps-on-the-gas-again-ffd30746/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/OGFbuaJ5Q8GHuuer-gFUWw

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