Walmart China CEO Christina Zhu says the company’s singular focus on the Chinese consumer, rather than any fixed business model, is behind a 20.7% rise in China sales last quarter, outpacing every other part of the Walmart group.
Zhu, president and chief executive of Walmart China, made the remarks at the Fortune Leaders Forum in Macau on 8 September, as the US retail giant continues to expand in one of the world’s most competitive consumer markets.
“I only have one boss, and my boss is the Chinese customer,” Zhu said. “We’re not here to propagate any particular model, but rather to serve our customers. If you always go back to that starting point, then everything else becomes very easy.”
Walmart China CEO Christina Zhu on speed, scale and omnichannel
Zhu pointed to the pace Chinese consumers expect as a defining pressure. While a three-day delivery window might satisfy shoppers elsewhere, she said the standard in China is closer to 30 minutes.
That intensity has forced a wholesale transformation of the business. More than 50% of Walmart China’s sales revenue now comes from online purchases, a shift Zhu credited to years of building an omnichannel network alongside domestic e-commerce rivals including Taobao and Pinduoduo.
“Coming from a traditional business, it took a lot of effort to try to transform the organisation,” she said. “I think we’ve passed that hurdle and are today a fully-fledged omnichannel company.”
Walmart still operates nearly 300 Supercenters across more than 100 Chinese cities. The company also opened more than ten new stores across China in the past year, even as Western brands including Starbucks and Lululemon have reported difficulties in the market.
Sam’s Club and the premium push
The members-only format Sam’s Club is a growing part of that footprint. The brand opened its sixth Beijing outlet, in the Fangshan district, last week.
Zhu described a deliberate targeting approach for the format. “Sam’s Club serves the upper middle class families in Chinese cities, so we don’t try to serve everyone with that format,” she said, noting that product ranges are carefully curated to that membership.
Walmart China has also continued rolling out smaller community and neighbourhood store formats in cities including Shenzhen.
Walmart’s broader retail media operation has been growing in parallel. According to Porter’s Five Force, Walmart Connect global advertising sales reached $3.8 billion in 2024, a 30% year-on-year increase, underlining how the group is monetising its scale beyond traditional retail margins.
Zhu said the company’s willingness to change is the common thread running through its performance. “Certain things (like our values and purpose of helping customers to save money and live better) don’t change,” she said. “But everything else must change, because technology and consumer behaviour will change.”
Walmart China opened its first outlet in Shenzhen in 1996, five years before China joined the World Trade Organization, when large-scale hypermarts did not yet exist in the country.
