Suning Appliance, China’s largest electronics retailer, has reported strong profit and sales growth for its fiscal first half, as it continues to expand rapidly.

For the six months to end-June, net profit was up 25.4% to 2.47bn yuan, while sales grew by 22.7% to 44.2bn yuan. The company noted that results were helped by the addition of new outlets, as well as higher sales of home appliances.

Suning opened 140 new outlets in mainland China and five stores in Hong Kong in the half. At the end of the half, it operates a total of 1,488 stores - 1,451 in mainland China, 28 in Hong Kong, and nine in Japan.

The company also announced that it has formally launched its first after-sales technical training centre, which it claims is the first such in the Chinese home appliances retail industry. The centre is the first of 65 regional centres planned, through which Suning aims to train its nearly 30,000 after-sales staff.