British life insurer Standard Life plans to have outlets in 40 Chinese cities by 2010, as it changes its mainland expansion strategy to target provinces where it can become a market leader, a top executive said today.
Standard Life, which runs a China insurance joint venture with China's TEDA Investment Holding Co, is currently in six cities and it plans to have offices by 14 at the end of this year, according to Alan Armitage, its Asia chief executive.
Rather than target specific cities, Standard Life plans to get approval to enter various provinces, which should improve its ability to open new branches in individual cities, Mr Armitage added.
Its Chinese joint venture is based in the northeastern city of Tianjin and it also has branches in Qingdao and Beijing.
Mr Armitage said the insurer will avoid the oversaturated market of Shanghai for now, and look at provinces with large second-tier cities, which in China can still have populations of more than 5 million. Liaoning would be one attractive province, which has the large northeastern city of Shenyang.
"There's not many of our competitors there," he said. Standard Life is also confident it will win an asset management license for China, granting it entry to the country's potentially massive group pension business.
"That's months away but signs are encouraging," Armitage said.