Refusing to be trapped in an endless price war, two small consumer-electronics and home-appliance retailers are fine-tuning their marketing strategies to lure customers with a trendy shopping environment and premium services, company executives said yesterday.
"Competition is not just about price," said Peter Dove, managing director of Fortress, Hong Kong's largest personal electronics and appliances operator. He is visiting Taiwan to celebrate the opening of Fortress Taiwan's 10th outlet in Taipei today.
Over the past few months, bigger rivals Tsann Kuen Group (
Instead of following suit and eroding its gross margins, Fortress is sticking to its principle of offering "value for money" service, Dove said.
Since the retailer introduced its new "concept store" decor in January last year with the aim of offering a comfortable shopping experience and meeting a growing demand from sophisticated consumers, revenues in these stores grew 12 percent, Dove said.
He refused to disclose detailed sales figures.
Despite being a small latecomer in the competitive market, Dove expressed optimism about Fortress' flexibility in addressing shopper needs and adjusting the company's business models in accordance with contemporary lifestyles.
To tap into what Dove described as a lucrative market here, Fortress has mapped out the most aggressive strategy since its entry in 1998, hoping to expand to 30 outlets by the end of the year with a NT$150 million (US$5 million) investment in store expansion.
Across the Taiwan Strait, the retailer also expects to open its first outlet in southern China this year. Joseph Lo (
Fortress is not alone in offering top service to escape the tug of war to offer lower prices. UNC (
UNC's new general manager Liu Ming-jui (劉明瑞), who formally took over yesterday, said the retailer will sell state-of-the-art products with higher gross margins, embark on a course of store renovations and close poorly-performing outlets.
"We want to become the first retailer in Taiwan to showcase the newest products, like Japanese refrigerators equipped with special functions. Every time when consumers want the latest appliances, they'll come visit our outlets," he said.
"Also, to control costs and boost business efficiency, our stores will have only one floor, with the size between 80 and 100 ping [264m2 and 330m2]," said Liu, who formerly served as vice general manager of Tomorrow World Computer Chain Store (明日世界電腦).
While market speculation is rife about a possible merger with Tomorrow World Computer, Liu said his priority is to reform UNC before considering the possibility of such a merger.
However, the companies will start cooperating on joint purchases and form a strategic alliance to save costs and complement each other's business operations, he added.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by