Over a thousand brands open first stores in Shanghai in 2022

The city of Shanghai in East China opened 1,073 international and domestic brands first stores last year – including flagship stores and concept stores – according to big data service platform Dataquest China.

Shanghai is regarded as the benchmark city of the "first-store economy". With its massive economic strength and retail potential, it is regarded as the first choice for international brands to enter China and for domestic brands to incubate new brands and try out new business forms.

Among the newly opened first stores last year, a dozen were global first stores and Asian first stores, 133 were China first stores and 915 were Shanghai first stores.

The eight global first stores included Swiss furniture brand USM and fashion brand Farmer Bob. The four Asian first stores included PRADA's first Asia Pacific store for perfume and beauty, the third concept store in the world for luxury Swiss watch manufacturer IWC and AMIRI's first flagship store in Asia.

From the perspective of the most favored areas for location, the Jing'an, Huangpu, Xuhui, Pudong, Changning, Minhang and Putuo districts hosted nearly 90 percent of the city's new first stores. Of those, Jing'an district topped the list, with 225 first stores introduced in 2022.

Dataquest China believes that this year Shanghai will still be the top choice for the world's most famous brands to open their first stores in the country.