South Korea’s leading hypermarket retailer E-Mart Inc., a unit of the nation’s retail conglomerate Shinsegae Group, said Monday it earned an exclusive right to open and run Boots drugstores, Britain’s largest drug store chain owned by multinational top drugstore operator Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., in Korea, a move that is expected to further heat up competition in the country’s drugstore market.

According to E-Mart, it struck a franchise contract with Walgreens Boots Alliance and aims to open the first Boots shop in Korea in the first half of next year. The latest deal comes after the Korean company has prepared to bring the British drugstore chain to the country for the last two years by forming a task force dubbed B (boots) TF, headed by its Vice President Jung Joon-ho, who had previously led efforts to win Shinsegae Group’s duty-free shop license from the government last year.

Walgreens Boots Alliance is the largest pharmacy-led health and beauty retailer in the United States and Europe that was created after U.S.-based Walgreens acquired U.K.-based Alliance Boots in December 2014. It runs over 13,100 stores in 11 countries including the U.S., U.K., Thailand and Taiwan.

The upcoming opening of Boots in Korea is expected to further escalate the competition in the country’s drugstore market that is already crowded with CJ OLIVE YOUNG, GS Watsons and Lotte LOHBS. E-Mart has been operating its own drugstore brand BOONS that has failed to win Korean consumers’ hearts and will phase out BOONS brand to start anew with Boots brand stores.

The Boots stores in the country will each feature an independent pharmacy and a range of Boots owned products and “exclusive to Boots” brands such as “No7” “Soap & Glory” as well as leading Korean brands.

E-Mart CEO Lee Gab-Soo said E-Mart will offer a different range of products at Boots stores from ones of its rivals to win the competition. Ornella Barra Co-Chief Operating Officer of Walgreens Boots Alliance also expected the two companies’ partnership to bring new opportunities to both.

By Cho Sung-ho

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