Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, West Elm, and Williams Sonoma open doors in Seoul with more to come
Williams-Sonoma, Inc. (NYSE: WSM) announced the opening of its brands’
first stores in Seoul, South Korea under its strategic franchise
agreement with Hyundai Livart Furniture, a premier home goods retailer.
Pottery Barn and Pottery Barn Kids opened a combined store and West Elm
opened a store at Hyundai City Mall Garden 5. Williams Sonoma opened at
Hyundai Department store Mokdong. These openings are the first of 30
stores from the Williams-Sonoma, Inc. brand portfolio expected to open
across South Korea over the next 10 years.
“This is an exciting milestone in our global expansion,” said Laura
Alber, President and Chief Executive Officer of Williams-Sonoma, Inc.
“We are proud to open our first stores in Seoul and introduce our
distinctive brands, excellent customer service, and exceptional products
to customers in South Korea.”
“We currently operate retail stores in the United States, Canada,
Australia and the United Kingdom, and franchise our brands to third
parties in a number of countries in the Middle East, the Philippines,
and Mexico. By the end of this year Williams-Sonoma, Inc. will be
represented at more than 145 international retail locations,” said
Ronald Young, Executive Vice President, Global of Williams–Sonoma, Inc.
“As we begin our partnership with Livart opening our first four stores
of many to come in South Korea, we look forward to the tremendous
opportunity of continuing our global expansion.”
“The first Williams-Sonoma, Inc. store openings bring a big change to
the domestic home furnishings market in South Korea,” said Hwa-Eung Kim,
Representative Director and Chief Executive Officer of Hyundai Livart
Furniture Co. Ltd. “Our partnership with Williams-Sonoma, Inc.
helps us bring the best quality and differentiated design offerings to
customers, and we are looking forward to opening additional stores in
Seoul and in other major cities across South Korea soon.”
This October, Williams-Sonoma, Inc. and Livart will open a five-story
flagship store in Nonhyun-dong, Seoul. The superstore will include
Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, and West Elm, and will represent the
first time three Williams-Sonoma, Inc. brands are offered in a single
standalone location. An additional Williams Sonoma store will be opened
in the Hyundai City Mall Daegu branch in the latter half of this year.
About Williams-Sonoma, Inc.
Williams-Sonoma, Inc. is a specialty retailer of high-quality products
for the home. These products, representing eight distinct merchandise
strategies – Williams Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, West Elm,
PBteen, Williams Sonoma Home, Rejuvenation, and Mark and Graham – are
marketed through e-commerce websites, direct mail catalogs and retail
stores. Williams-Sonoma, Inc. currently operates in the United States,
Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, offers international shipping
to customers worldwide, and has unaffiliated franchises that operate
stores in the Middle East, the Philippines and South Korea, and stores
and e-commerce websites in Mexico.
About Hyundai Livart
Hyundai Livart, an affiliate of Hyundai Department Store Group, is a
home furnishing company which provides new lifestyles to its customers
in areas of home, office, built-in and diverse areas. Hyundai Livart’s
main brands include; Livart, Livart Neoce, Livart Ismine, Livart
Kitchen, Livart Kids, H.Mondo. As described in Livart’s name
(Living+Art, Designing the living space through art) aims to provide its
customers every day new life.
Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve
risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that, if they do not
fully materialize or prove incorrect, could cause our results to differ
materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking
statements. Such forward-looking statements include statements related
to the success of our franchise operations in South Korea and our global
expansion strategy. The risks and uncertainties that could cause our
results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such
forward-looking statements include the risk that the anticipated
franchise stores in South Korea do not open on schedule or are not
successful, that the overall franchise operations are not successful,
and that we are not able to continue to execute our global expansion
strategy as planned. These and other risks and uncertainties are
described more fully in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal
year ended January 29, 2017 and all subsequent quarterly reports on Form
10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K. All forward-looking statements in
this press release are based on information available to us as of the
date hereof, and we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking
statements.
