President Chain Store Corp (
The two companies set up the Muji (Taiwan) Co (
President Chain and its parent company, Uni-President Enterprise Group (
Mitsubishi is also a minority stake shareholder of Ryohin Kei-kaku, controlling 4 percent of the retailer's shares.
Muji Taiwan is expected to compete head-to-head with home-furnishings seller Working House (
But Hsu Chung-jen said the alliance with Ryohin Keikaku will bring a number of advantages to President Chain as it branches out into a new area of business.
The Muji venture could cause a major shift in the so-called "lifestyle-concept shop" market, Hsu said, comparing the effect with the introduction of US-based Starbucks to Taiwan five years ago.
President Chain now oversees 30 Starbucks shops in Shanghai and 109 in Taiwan.
But Hsu has even higher expectations for the new venture.
"It took us at least four years to start turning profits at Starbucks Taiwan, but we expect it won't take longer than three years for Muji to make money in the local market," he said.
Muji, a 23-year old retailer specializing in home furnishings, kitchenware and stationary with "simple, natural and quality" designs, has average annual sales of ?115 billion (NT$33.85 billion). Muji owns 121 stores throughout Japan.
Apart from its expansion to Taiwan, Muji is also opening shops in the UK, Ireland, France, Hong Kong, Singapore and Korea. The company opened its first overseas store in the UK about 10 years ago.
The venture plans to set up its first store in Taipei sometime in the first half of next year, general manager of Muji Taiwan Tony Tsai (
One market watcher applauded the alliance, saying President Chain is on the right track by focusing on retailing.
"The core value of President Chain is its experience and know-how in running retail businesses, and this is what interests investors about the company," said Raymond Yang (
"President Chain has strong know-how and can boost efficiency so long as all units under the umbrella share information and operating costs," Yang added.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained