Tesco has detailed its ambitions for further overseas expansion and signalled an eventual switch to warehouses to support its internet shopping business.
The company already has a presence in Ireland, Hungary, Poland, Thailand, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, South Korea and Taiwan as well as the UK.
But David Reid, deputy chairman, in an interview with the McKinsey Quarterly's Paris office, described plans for China as having "some urgency."
He said: "We have had a team out there for two years and that costs money. But there is no danger of getting closed out of the market as yet  it's too big."
Reid said Tesco would like to find "a good local partner" although it had not been able to identify one yet. And it also needed a licence to operate.
He said that Tesco was also hungry for Japan. "Wal-Mart's decision to buy into an existing retailer would, I think, be our model.
"Opening hypermarkets from scratch in Japan, as Carrefour has bravely done, puts a huge strain on any profit and loss account."
He said that the United States was also attractive because it was a growth market, like China, but there was also strong competition with good players there.
He said the company's e-commerce deal with Safeway in the US demonstrated it could add value through its home shopping capabilities.
"So there may be more where that came from."
On the subject of home shopping, Reid said he would be surprised if the company did not test out a warehouse model at some stage "but only on the back of significant scale and in a region where we can get the warehouse close enough to the customers to give a good standard of service.
He said that at some stage if the company did not have warehouses, the turnover might become a burden on the stores.
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The company already has a presence in Ireland, Hungary, Poland, Thailand, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, South Korea and Taiwan as well as the UK.
But David Reid, deputy chairman, in an interview with the McKinsey Quarterly's Paris office, described plans for China as having "some urgency."
He said: "We have had a team out there for two years and that costs money. But there is no danger of getting closed out of the market as yet  it's too big."
Reid said Tesco would like to find "a good local partner" although it had not been able to identify one yet. And it also needed a licence to operate.
He said that Tesco was also hungry for Japan. "Wal-Mart's decision to buy into an existing retailer would, I think, be our model.
"Opening hypermarkets from scratch in Japan, as Carrefour has bravely done, puts a huge strain on any profit and loss account."
He said that the United States was also attractive because it was a growth market, like China, but there was also strong competition with good players there.
He said the company's e-commerce deal with Safeway in the US demonstrated it could add value through its home shopping capabilities.
"So there may be more where that came from."
On the subject of home shopping, Reid said he would be surprised if the company did not test out a warehouse model at some stage "but only on the back of significant scale and in a region where we can get the warehouse close enough to the customers to give a good standard of service.
He said that at some stage if the company did not have warehouses, the turnover might become a burden on the stores.
{{NEWS }}
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