French retailer Carrefour (家樂福) says sales of its 3,000 private-label products, which are on average 10 percent to 30 percent cheaper than the leading brands, grew 30 percent year-on-year in the first half of this year .
Carrefour Taiwan’s private-label lines in daily necessities, such as toilet paper and cleaning products are already very complete so it will focus in the second half of the year on developing food products because food items have been directly affected by rising commodity prices, the company said yesterday.
“Carrefour will focus on fresh produce, which is currently lacking in our private-label products, because that is the most difficult area to save money on,” said Dream Lin (林夢紹), Carrefour’s public relations manager.
Carrefour, which operates 48 stores nationwide, said that its private-label products account for less than 10 percent of its sales in Taiwan, but it hopes to double that in the next three years.
“Unlike the UK and France, where private-label products began developing in the 1980, and penetration rates have now reached between 20 percent and 30 percent, the development of private-label products here in Taiwan has been more recent,” said Loic Percheron, Carrefour’s private brand manager.
Carrefour’s major local original equipment manufacturers (OEM) include the nation’s leading soy sauce manufacturer, Kimlan Foods Co (金蘭食品), and paper manufacturer Cheng Loong Corp (正隆).
Carrefour plans to open 10 more stores in Ilan, Touliu City, Yunlin County, Taitung and other areas in the second half of this year, which will give it a total of 57 stores and leave local rivals RT-Mart (大潤發) and Far Eastern Geant (愛買) lagging far behind.
Carrefour’s revenues in the second quarter grew 2.3 percent from the same period a year ago, slightly down from the first quarter’s 4 percent growth, but company officials said they were confident of expanded growth in the second half of the year.
In related developments, Far Eastern Geant — the nation’s third-largest hypermarket chain with 14 stores nationwide — said that the establishment of “fair price areas” in its outlets on June 5, which offer discounts of up to 43 percent off normal prices, have helped it boost its overall sales by 20 percent, while sales of its “fair price” toilet papers, salad oil and milk powder have grown by nearly 100 percent.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure