Sa Sa International Ltd (莎莎) plans to open at least 10 stores in Asia in the next six months and expects a surge in sales to Chinese tourists in its home market of Hong Kong to continue, a company executive said.
Sa Sa, which has 30 percent of Hong Kong's cosmetics market, plans to add three outlets in the city for a total of 36, chief financial officer Guy Look said in an interview. About four-fifth's of the company's sales come from the city.
"We have been successful in Hong Kong," Look said. "We see strong growth in both local and tourism spending."
About 90 percent of the company's sales to tourists in Hong Kong are to Chinese visitors, he said.
Sa Sa shares have doubled this quarter as investors bet China's relaxed rules on Chinese visiting Hong Kong will boost sales. Sa Sa is one of the most popular Hong Kong stores among Chinese tourists, Credit Lyonnais SA wrote in a report.
The stock is trading at 36 times last year's earnings, almost four times the price to earnings ratio of Bonjour Holdings Ltd, another Hong Kong-listed cosmetics retailer.
"Sa Sa shares are expensive," said Kenny Tang, associate director of research at Tung Tai Securities Ltd.
Look said he expected Sa Sa's Hong Kong sales to increase 10 percent this year. The company sold 20 percent more cosmetics in July and last month than a year earlier, after sales slumped as much as a fifth during the second-quarter SARS epidemic.
"It's a faster recovery than we had expected," Look said.
Sa Sa, which has 60 stores across Asia, plans to open one additional store in Taiwan and three more stores each in Singapore and Malaysia, Look said.
Although Sa Sa is popular with Chinese, the company has no stores in China yet. Look said the company plans to open one or two "prototype" stores in Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou in the next 12 months.
"China is a very important market," Look said. "It's much bigger and more diversified."
The company hasn't decide whether to enter China on its own or with a venture partner, he said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last