President Chain Store Corp (統一超商), operator of the 7-Eleven and Starbucks franchises both here and in China, will cut spending and slow expansion this year because of cooling regional growth.
President Chain expects to spend as little as NT$3.5 billion (US$104 million) this year on new stores and remodeling, compared with as much as NT$4.5 billion last year, said Steve Chen (陳炳宏), a spokesman for the Taipei-based company. Spending in China will fall to as little as NT$500 million from NT$1 billion, he said.
“We’re now more focused on store performance than the number of stores,” Chen said in a phone interview yesterday.
Retail sales fell in the seven months through December as consumers cut spending amid job losses, pushing parent-level sales at President Chain down 0.1 percent last year. China had its slowest economic expansion in seven years, 6.8 percent, in the fourth quarter.
Still, President Chain will add 100 Taiwanese 7-Eleven stores this year for a total of 4,900, the same number it added last year, Chen said. The company originally planned to open 220 shops last year, he said.
Its Starbucks chain will add a net 11 stores in Taiwan and 23 in China this year, compared with a plan to open 18 in Taiwan and 39 in China last year. The company will open its first 7-Eleven stores in China by the end of March, aiming to have as many as 20 by the end of the year, he said.
“Mister Donut was particularly affected by the slowdown in the economy,” Chen said.
The company will shut four of its 46 donut stores in Taiwan this year, opening as many as five in China in a venture with Osaka-based Duskin Co, he said.
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose to No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) at 348th, Pegatron Corp (和碩) at 461st, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) at 494th and Wistron Corp (緯創) at
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip assembly and testing service provider, yesterday said it would boost equipment capital expenditure by up to 16 percent for this year to cope with strong customer demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Aside from AI, a growing demand for semiconductors used in the automotive and industrial sectors is to drive ASE’s capacity next year, the Kaohsiung-based company said. “We do see the disparity between AI and other general sectors, and that pretty much aligns the scenario in the first half of this year,” ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu (吳田玉) told an
RSS