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"Yihaodian co-founders, Chairman Gang Yu and CEO Junling Liu
have announced they are leaving Yihaodian," Walmart said in a
statement, adding that it is recruiting other leaders.
The U.S. company "will work to accelerate (Yihaodian's) growth
... and Walmart continues to be committed to investing in China
and in e-commerce."
The world's biggest retailer, Wal-Mart plans to close some
under-performing stores in China and seek to tap into the
faster-growing online grocery market through its digital
Yihaodian.com platform.
Wal-Mart's Asia head Scott Price told Reuters earlier this year
that online retail was important to help tap China's younger
generations. "What we're finding is that the Chinese customer is
going online and they're going online outside of China pretty
aggressively," he said.
Wal-Mart, along with France's Carrefour SA and Britain's Tesco
PLC have all seen sales growth slip over the last five years,
losing market share to local rivals, according to a report from
consumer analytics firm Kantar Worldpanel.
But Yihaodian.com remains dwarfed in China by Alibaba Group
Holding Ltd and JD.com Inc, let alone the many other rivals it
competes with including compatriot Amazon.com Inc.
In 2012, Wal-Mart took control of Yihaodian.com by bumping up
its stake to 51 percent, scouring for new sources of revenue
outside traditional retail amid tough competition and hoping to
latch onto a boom in Chinese e-commerce.
(Reporting by Paul Carsten in Beijing and Adam Jourdan in
Shanghai)
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