RT-Mart, which has just turned profitable, has identified its future main store format: the smaller, more refined RT-Mart Super with community canteens. On the evening of November 12, RT-Mart's parent company, Sun Art Retail Group, released its interim results for fiscal year 2025 ending September 30, reporting revenue of RMB 34.708 billion and a net profit after tax of RMB 186 million, a year-on-year increase of RMB 564 million, turning losses into profits. A highlight was a 0.3% year-on-year increase in same-store sales. Sun Art Retail, which announced a return to healthy growth with the opening of the Kunshan Huaqiao RT-Mart Super store on November 2, also clarified in this financial report that the second growth curve, the RT-Mart Super mid-sized supermarket format, has been proven successful and will become the main driver for nationwide expansion, accelerating store openings and carrying Sun Art Retail's hopes of returning to high-tier cities.
"RT-Mart Super adopts extreme efficiency as its core strategy and has achieved standardization in store development, product assortment, staffing, and operations," said the company. RT-Mart Super stores range from 1,500 to 3,000 square meters, leveraging the supply chain resources of hypermarkets to curate 5,000-8,000 products, of which over 1,000 are from series such as "RT-Mart Must-Buy," "More for Less," "Everyday Low Price," and the private brand "Super Save," forming a long-term low-price product matrix. Additionally, RT-Mart Super adds distinctive commercial features, including community canteens offering affordable fast food to residents. According to insiders, several well-received community canteens have been opened in RT-Mart stores in Shanghai in the second half of this year.
Data shows that in September 2021, the first RT-Mart Super store opened in Changzhou. In December of that year, the first concept store nationwide opened in Changchun, Jilin, with a total of 12,000 SKUs, food accounting for 85%, fresh produce 20%, and non-food home textiles only 0.2%, completely eliminating the clothing category. Initially, RT-Mart Super was positioned to fill gaps in communities not covered by large stores, working in tandem with RT-Mart hypermarkets to capture second-, third-, and fourth-tier regional markets, or areas where large stores could not yet open, highlighting the differentiated value of a condensed and premium version of RT-Mart.
During the reporting period, RT-Mart Super opened 30 stores across 10 provinces and cities nationwide, including Shanghai, Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang, Shandong, Jilin, Hubei, Gansu, Sichuan, and Guangdong. After self-adjustments, performance improved significantly, with same-store sales achieving mid-to-high single-digit growth. The Kunshan Huaqiao RT-Mart Super store is internally regarded as the latest concept store for this format. When it opened on November 2, it set a record with first-day sales exceeding one million yuan.
In fiscal year 2024, RT-Mart Super was officially designated as Sun Art Retail's second growth curve, and 13 locations were selected for accelerated openings during that fiscal year. RT-Mart Super becoming the main future format for RT-Mart serves as a model in the latest wave of supermarket "adjustment and reform." The domestic supermarket "renovation" wave that began in 2023 primarily marks a shift away from the past decades' profit model of collecting rents from suppliers. Supermarkets are adopting various methods to return to the essence of retail, building more precise products, deeper customer value, and strong supply chain capabilities based on organizational change and supply chain integration.
Currently, traditional large hypermarkets spanning tens of thousands of square meters with tens of thousands of SKUs are gradually exiting the stage. Reducing store size, refining product selection, and using private brands to create everyday low prices have become new directions for some supermarket transformations. A recent example is Bailian Group's Lianhua Supermarket, which has initiated a 90-day "self-revolutionary" store reform. Its flagship store, Century Lianhua Shanghai Zhonghuan, has been reduced from 12,000 square meters to 4,000 square meters, with products streamlined from 20,000 to 8,000, adding more experiences and services and providing new life solutions.
In August, Shen Hui, who had been RT-Mart's CEO for five months, emphasized in his first public interview that hypermarkets will definitely remain a pillar for RT-Mart (Sun Art Retail) in the future. "Hypermarkets definitely have huge, huge opportunities!" He noted that "small profits, quick turnover" is the core of hypermarkets and the goal of RT-Mart's "return." In the past six months, RT-Mart has launched "RT-Mart Must-Buy," "More for Less," "Everyday Low Price," and the private brand "Super Save," forming a low-price product matrix, with over 1,100 new low-price items introduced during the reporting period.
According to this financial report, the turnaround to profitability and same-store growth mainly stems from low-price strategies and product strategies that enhance user perception, leading to increased customer loyalty. Offline revenue is gradually recovering and stabilizing, while new online channels and the proprietary app "RT-Mart Youxian" have become the main drivers of same-store sales growth. Sun Art Retail Chairman Huang Mingduan stated, "After just half a year of return and adjustment, Sun Art Retail has returned to a healthy growth trajectory. The performance in the first half of the fiscal year has set a good start for the new fiscal year, filling us with confidence and expectation for the future."