Source | Narrowcast By Xiao Chao (Bangkok) According to data from the China Chain Store & Franchise Association, in 2023, the three major Japanese convenience store chains—LAWSON, 7-Eleven, and FamilyMart—had a combined 12,943 stores in China. Outside China, in a country roughly the size of Sichuan Province, 7-Eleven alone has grown to 15,245 stores, making it the country with the most 7-Eleven stores outside Japan. That country is Thailand.

Here, over 15,000 7-Eleven stores hold a 70% share of the Thai convenience store market, while the second-place player (Lotus's go fresh) and third-place (Big C's Mini Big C) hold only 9% and 7%, respectively.

Here, each 7-Eleven store serves 978 customers per day, with an average transaction of 85 Thai baht (about RMB 18), contributing to an average daily sales per store of 83,906 Thai baht (about RMB 17,900).

In total, 7-Eleven generated 439.787 billion Thai baht (about RMB 93.8 billion) in convenience store revenue for its parent company CP ALL in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 10.1%; net profit was 21.564 billion Thai baht (about RMB 4.6 billion), up 40.0% from the previous year; gross margin was 29.0%, and same-store sales grew 3.8%.

Since 1988, when Thailand's Charoen Pokphand Group obtained the franchise, 7-Eleven, with its uniform pricing and budget-friendly approach, has grown rapidly in Thailand, especially in the high-density Bangkok area, where it has largely replaced traditional mom-and-pop grocery stores.

It is not only a daily necessity for local residents but also a must-visit for international tourists. On Xiaohongshu, the search term "Bangkok travel guide" shows over 400,000 posts, while "Thailand 711" has over 110,000 posts.

Although national conditions and historical development paths differ, observing the growth path and market status of Thailand's 7-Eleven still reveals some simple business principles and shows how, in a deeply penetrated retail market, leading retailers can achieve industrial integration and reshape the industry landscape.

What's Inside 7-Eleven Living in an ordinary apartment in Bangkok's Rama 9 area, opening Google Maps shows 34 7-Eleven stores within a one-mile radius.

These 7-Elevens are typically open 24 hours, with varying store sizes. According to data disclosed in CP ALL's 2003 prospectus, typical stores range from 80 to 100 square meters and carry about 3,000 SKUs.

These 3,000 SKUs are divided into two categories in the annual report: food and beverage products, and non-food items. According to 2024 data, the former accounts for 76% of sales, and the latter 24%.

Food and beverage products include various types of ready-to-eat foods (chilled/frozen, staple/bakery), as well as ready-to-cook ingredients such as fresh-cut vegetables, frozen meat, and various sauces and seasonings. Additionally, there are regular snacks, beverages, and milk products.

Non-food items include household products, personal care products, beauty products, and communication and IT gadgets. Notably, due to tourism's significant role in Thailand's economy, travel-sized versions of these products are extremely abundant.

Different store types emphasize different product categories. For example, community-based stores typically have larger ready-to-eat food sections, while stores near tourist attractions carry more Thai specialty products (such as seaweed snacks, dried fruits and candies, Thai herbal products) and travel supplies (such as beauty product samples).

From the perspective of a resident consumer, 7-Eleven can fully meet daily needs: you can buy travel-sized replacements for about RMB 10, or a convenient meal for about RMB 10-20, and both WeChat Pay and Alipay are supported.

Moreover, the ready-to-eat foods are quite tasty, and the wide selection caters to consumers from different countries. For example, the Thai national dish, minced pork with holy basil (pad kra pao), has evolved into various forms: pad kra pao with rice, pad kra pao with pasta, pad kra pao with burger, and pad kra pao with buns.

Although the product assortment varies slightly between 7-Eleven stores, often being subsets of each other, the proximity of multiple stores makes it acceptable to visit several in one trip.

If you're too lazy to go out, in Southeast Asia where overall food delivery penetration is low, Thailand's 7-Eleven even launched its own 30-minute delivery O2O service, 7Delivery, in 2019, which contributed about 10% of sales by 2024. For items not available at nearby stores, consumers can also use the All Online service to choose from over 20,000 7-Eleven online products.

Additionally, another significant advantage of 7-Eleven beyond its products is that all stores have very effective air conditioning. While this may seem trivial, in the perpetually hot Southeast Asia, even in Bangkok, a considerable portion of public transportation (such as buses and intercity trains) and roadside independent restaurants do not yet offer air conditioning.

Walking outside in 39-degree weather in April, the relief of entering or approaching a 7-Eleven is only slightly less satisfying than the first sip of an ice-cold soda. Hence, there's a joke that in Thailand, 7-Eleven is a place where both people and dogs love to go.

How 7-Eleven Conquered Thailand The Charoen Pokphand Group, which holds the 7-Eleven franchise in Thailand, is the same conglomerate known to Chinese consumers for Chia Tai (CP) TV programs and Lotus Supermarket. Starting with a vegetable seed business in 1921, it later became a diversified multinational corporation with core businesses in agriculture and food, commercial retail, and telecommunications and television, while also venturing into finance, real estate, pharmaceuticals, machinery processing, and more than ten other industries. Its family has also long held the title of Thailand's richest.

Since the first 7-Eleven in Thailand opened in 1989, the 1,000th store opened ten years later (1998), the 2,000th four years after that (2002), and the 3,000th three years later (2005). From 2013, it expanded steadily at a rate of 700 stores per year. The number of stores exceeded 10,000 in 2017 and surpassed 15,000 in 2024.

7-Eleven stores in Thailand are of three types: company-operated stores, business partner stores (individual franchises), and area agreement stores (regional franchises). According to 2024 data, out of 15,245 total stores, 7,743 are company-operated (51%), 6,594 are individual franchises (43%), and 908 are regional franchises (6%).

Having the backing of a major conglomerate with ample capital for independent expansion is certainly one reason 7-Eleven could open so many stores, but when CP ALL executives later discussed the reasons for 7-Eleven's success, they attributed the primary factor to choosing the right path at the right time.

When the 7-Eleven franchise was acquired in 1988, 7-Eleven was still an American company (acquired by Ito-Yokado, later renamed Seven & I, in 1991). During negotiations, the American brand owner believed that Thailand's per capita GDP was too low—more than ten times lower than the U.S.—and that 7-Eleven could not succeed in Thailand. However, Charoen Pokphand Group's senior chairman, Dhanin Chearavanont, firmly believed in the investment prospects of high population density and low land and labor costs, ultimately winning the partnership.

In hindsight, 1987 to 1996 was Thailand's golden decade, with per capita GDP surging from over $900 to more than $3,000. According to international convenience store experience, when per capita GDP reaches $2,000-3,000, the convenience store introduction period begins; when it reaches $5,000, the convenience store enters a rapid growth phase.

In 1997, the Asian financial crisis began with Soros shorting the Thai baht, severely damaging Thailand's economy. During the crisis, CP Group was forced to sell most of its shares in its Lotus supermarket (also known as Lotus, the Thai version of Lotus Supermarket) to British retailer Tesco, preserving its agricultural and food heritage and retaining the continued development of 7-Eleven.

(Incidentally, in 2020, years after the Asian financial crisis, CP Group spent $10.5 billion to acquire Tesco's Southeast Asian business, bringing Lotus back into the CP fold. This was also the largest acquisition in Thai history.)

Today, in Thailand's modern retail channels, convenience stores hold the highest market share at 48%, supermarkets 26%, and hypermarkets 18%. The revenue 7-Eleven generates for CP Group far exceeds the combined revenue of its other two pillars in wholesale and large-scale retail (Makro and Lotus).

Of course, besides strategic choices and strategic persistence, many other factors contributed to 7-Eleven's success, such as Thailand's urbanization rate increase, the shrinking of family structures, the shift toward convenience-oriented consumer behavior, and CP Group's emphasis on consumer research and product development.

Among these, another key milestone frequently mentioned is 7-Eleven's partnership in 2002 with PTT, Thailand's largest state-owned energy company, to exclusively open 7-Eleven stores at PTT gas stations. According to the annual report, more than 2,100 of 7-Eleven's over 15,000 stores are gas station locations.

Coincidentally, Thailand's PTT gas stations have two standard features: a 7-Eleven store and PTT's own coffee brand, Café Amazon. The latter has also become a national coffee brand in Thailand, with over 4,300 stores as of Q3 2024.

What Happens When One Player Dominates Here, "one player dominating" has two meanings: one is CP Group's dominance, and the other is 7-Eleven's dominance in the Thai convenience store industry.

CP Group's dominance contributes to the high proportion of private-label products in the food category at 7-Eleven stores. A can of pork, from feed, breeding, slaughter, processing, distribution, to sales, is all handled by CP Group's subsidiaries. A box of pad kra pao rice: the pork is still from its own farms, the basil leaves are grown by partner farmers, and the ready-to-eat food processing factory is also a CP subsidiary.

Take CPRAM, a ready-to-eat food manufacturer established by CP in 1996, as an example. It operates 16 food factories in 7 locations across Thailand, with 2023 revenue of 28.6 billion Thai baht (about RMB 6.1 billion) and profit of 1.1 billion Thai baht (about RMB 200 million). Over 90% of its sales come from 7-Eleven. When a new bread factory was completed in the second half of 2024, CPRAM mentioned that its goal in the bakery market is to capture 20% of Thailand's share.

From planting to production to processing, from trunk logistics to store sales to terminal O2O, the CP system, connecting primary, secondary, and tertiary industries, forms the solid foundation of 7-Eleven's low-price strategy, allowing it to maintain uniform national pricing even in Thailand with its vast wealth disparity.

7-Eleven's dominance, on the other hand, creates an extremely difficult competitive environment for the industry.

Take the other two Japanese convenience store chains, LAWSON and FamilyMart, as examples. Although FamilyMart entered Thailand through a joint venture in 1992, its early operations were lukewarm. In 2012, it changed its franchisee, partnering with Central Group, another major conglomerate and Thailand's largest chain department store family business, whose CentralWorld and Central Embassy are landmark buildings, and which consistently ranks in the top five on Thailand's richest lists. In 2013, LAWSON also entered the Thai market, partnering with SAHAPAT Group (a Thai consumer goods giant, whose subsidiary bsc is a national-level personal care and cosmetics brand).

In other words, numerically, in 2012, 7-Eleven had nearly 7,000 stores, FamilyMart had about 750, and LAWSON had not yet started. By 2023, 7-Eleven was about to break 15,000, LAWSON had not yet opened 200, and FamilyMart was at zero: its Japanese brand owner sold all shares in the Thai joint venture in 2020, and after the franchise agreement expired in 2023, the fewer than 1,000 FamilyMart stores were all rebranded under another name.

LAWSON and FamilyMart also attempted to differentiate by increasing Japanese product offerings and premium product lines, but in the face of 7-Eleven, which had already grown into a giant, these efforts ultimately had limited effect. 7-Eleven's market share in the convenience store industry has consistently remained above 70%.

Even 7-Eleven's unprecedented success in Thailand may have once provided some turnaround opportunities for its Japanese parent company, Seven & I. Starting in the second half of 2024, Seven & I became embroiled in a takeover battle with Canadian retail giant ACT. ACT sought to acquire Seven & I, while Seven & I's founding family hoped to avoid a change in ownership through a management buyout. This management buyout plan reportedly sought help from CP Group, which considered taking a stake. However, the management buyout plan reportedly failed in March of this year, and the two sides remain in a tug-of-war.