Lotte Duty Free to open two more outlets

JAKARTA. Lotte Duty Free, part of South Korean conglomerate Lotte Group, is set to open two more duty free shops in Indonesia.

Lotte Duty Free president director Kim Tae-ho said that after successful ventures at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport’s Terminal 2 and Ciputra World shopping center in South Jakarta, the company was planning to further expand in Indonesia by opening shops at Soekarno-Hatta’s Terminal 3 and Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali.

“This year or early next year hopefully we will start construction at [Soekarno-Hatta] Terminal 3,” he told a press conference on Wednesday. “As for Bali [Ngurah Rai], we are still in discussion.”

According to Kim, Indonesia is one of Lotte Duty Free’s main destinations outside South Korea as its main gateway, Soekarno-Hatta, is always busy with travelers. 

State-owned airport operator PT Angkasa Pura (AP) II data said that the annual number of passengers at Soekarno-Hatta hit 60.13 million last year, nearly three times its annual capacity of 22 million passengers.

“The outlet in Soekarno-Hatta was the first we opened outside Korea because Indonesia has lots of potential and is a promising market,” Kim said.

According to the company’s data, its existing Soekarno-Hatta outlet, which was opened less than two years ago with only 25.6 percent retail space, accounted for more than half of total duty-free store sales at the airport as of the end of 2013.

Meanwhile, Kim said sales at the Ciputra World outlet amounted to no more than 20 percent of the Soekarno-Hatta outlet’s sales.

The company, he said, would expand its outlet in Guam — an organized territory of the United States in the Marianas Archipelago — and another in Japan.

“With our expansion plans in the upcoming years, we are targeting to become the number two duty free shop in the world by 2018,” he said. 

Lotte Duty Free is now ranked number four globally after the US’ Duty Free Shop (DFS) Group, Switzerland’s Dufry and Germany’s Gebr. Heinemann.

Kim added that having South Korean music groups, actors and actresses as the company’s ambassadors — known as Hallyu marketing — proved to be helpful in nurturing its business here and would support its global mission.

The Lotte Group entered the Indonesian market in 2008 after acquiring 19 outlets around the country from Dutch wholesaler Makro, which it rapidly developed into Lotte Mart hypermarkets.

First launched in 1979, the group is the fifth-largest conglomerate in South Korea after Samsung, Hyundai Motor, SK and LG.

Lotte’s businesses cover retail, food and drink, tourism, petrochemicals, construction and manufacturing. In retail, the group manages Lotte Department Store, Lotte Mart, Lotte Super, Lotte Duty Free Store and Lotte Home Shopping. (dwa)