Private | |
Industry | Retailing |
Founded | 1999 |
Founder | Clément Depierre |
Headquarters | Seoul, South Korea |
Number of locations
|
hypermarket : 120, Homeplus Express : 250 |
Products | Groceries, consumer goods, |
Owner |
|
Website | www |
Korean name | |
Hangul | 홈플러스 |
---|---|
Revised Romanization | Hom-peul-leo-seu |
McCune–Reischauer | Hom-pul-le-su |
Homeplus (Hangul: 홈플러스) is a Korean discount store retail chain with 113 branches throughout South Korea. Homeplus is the second largest retailer in South Korea, behind Shinsegae Group's e-mart chain. It was owned by British supermarket conglomerate Tesco until 2015.
Homeplus operates both hypermarkets and its express format as well as a home delivery shopping service. Stores typically open at 10 AM and close at 12 PM.
Homeplus hypermarket stores typically offer general home products, clothing, electronics, and sporting goods. They also usually feature a multi-story car park, large supermarkets, and small, special-purpose stores such as fast food restaurants, travel agencies, appliance-rental firms, pharmacies, and bookstores. There are also "culture centres" in some of the stores.
In 2011, the retailer opened the world’s first virtual supermarket at Seolleung Station on Seoul Subway Line 2, where smartphone users can photograph the bar code of the life-size pictures, on the walls and platform screen doors, of 500 items of food, toiletries, electronics etc., for delivery within the same day.
In August 2014 the company cut their profit by $0.4 billion. On September 23, 2014 Homeplus was investigated for alleged data breach. From September 5–10 of the same year, one of the company's outlets was on a strike during Chuseok holiday protesting not substantial wage increase.
In September 2015 the company was sold to MBK Partners, a South Korean buyout firm, which partnered with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Singapore's Temasek Holdings in a transaction worth £4.2 billion.