After taking over smaller rival Tesco in June to secure its market leadership, Carrefour Taiwan is planning to take on Pxmart (
With 43 stores nationwide, including Tesco's six outlets, Carrefour accounts for the lion's share, or 46 percent, of the domestic organized retail industry.
It aims to add another five stores by year-end, and has set a sales target of NT$70 billion (US$2.1 billion), from NT$55 billion last year.
"Compared to Europe, where the store density is one hypermarket for every 50,000 people, Taiwan still has a large room for development with one store per 200,000 people," Carrefour spokesman Allan Tien (田中玉) said last Friday.
Apart from edging out their rivals by slashing commodity prices and offering guaranteed services, Tien said that hypermarkets would continue to grow at the expense of the traditional market, which rakes in an estimated NT$250 billion in annual sales.
As such, Carrefour would stick to its aggressive marketing strategy, aiming to have 80 stores in operation by 2010 before introducing its second business model from Europe to compete with Pxmart, he said.
Pxmart, characterized as a grocery discounter with general merchandise and dry goods as its major product mix, has around 300 stores nationwide.
Its retail prices are 10 percent to 15 percent lower than those in hypermarkets and 20 percent to 30 percent cheaper than those in supermarkets, according to the company's Web site.
Pxmart has said that it plans to expand to more than 500 stores, but did not give a timetable. Carrefour, however, shrugged off its smaller rival's plans.
"It's much easier to open a hard discounter, which only requires a sales area of 30 ping [100m2], and we've got the know-how. When the time comes, we can quickly duplicate our European experience to compete head-on with Pxmart by opening similar stores right next to its outlets," Tien said, adding that the ensuing competition would be similar to that witnessed in the local convenience store sector.
Meanwhile, RT-Mart (大潤發), the nation's second-largest hypermarket chain, introduced a new store format -- the drive-through model -- in the local market in June last year.
Based on the fastfood business' drive-through model, RT-Mart's Taoyuan outlet takes up less space at 300 ping and stocks 700 to 1,000 items.
Instead of shopping inside, consumers choose products using a touch screen installed outside the warehouse and then pay the bill. Within minutes, RT-Mart staff will pick up the items and load them in the shopper's vehicle.
However, this new business practice has yet to catch on.
"We're still testing the waters and adjusting the product mix to meet consumer demand," said RT-Mart president Kaufmann Wei (
He did not give a timetable as to when more drive-through stores will be opened, but hinted that he was mulling the possibility of introducing other business models into the country.
Wei added that RT-Mart is scheduled to open a mega store in Sinjhuang (新莊), Taipei County, next year, bringing its store number to 24.
As for the No. 3 player, Far Eastern Geant (愛買吉安), turning losses into gains remains its priority.
The company will focus on its hypermarket operations and has no plans of branching out into new store formats, according to its marketing director Wendy Yang (楊文婷).
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six