Mos Food Services Inc, Japan’s second-largest fast food restaurant chain, might open 200 stores in China in the next five years, betting its rice burgers may be better suited to local tastes than offerings from McDonald’s Corp.
“We want our rice burgers to be our main menu offering because they’re particularly popular among the Chinese,” Mos president Atsushi Sakurada said in an interview in Tokyo on Friday, referring to the success of the chain in Taiwan.
“It’s possible to open about 200” outlets in eastern China, he said.
Mos Food, which offers rice burgers that use grilled rice patties instead of buns, tailors its menu to suit local preferences, with its Taiwanese restaurants selling ginger-pork and fried seafood burgers.
The Tokyo-based chain is re-entering China after it exited following the bankruptcy of a previous joint venture partner in 1997.
“The company may succeed overseas with its unique menu,” said Takashi Oka, an analyst at Toward the Infinite World Inc, who has a “neutral” rating on Mos Food. “The company is being cautious this time with store opening plans.”
The chain is trying to cultivate new markets to turn around sales that are forecast to decline for a second straight year amid stagnant wages and an aging population.
Mos Food aims to boost the number of Mos Burger restaurants abroad to 1,000 in the next 10 years from about 210 now, Sakurada said.
It’s considering entering South Korea and Malaysia in the new fiscal year beginning April 1 and may open stores in Europe, North America and Australia, he said.
The company opened a new outlet in the city of Xiamen through a joint venture last month. Mos Food opened its first Hong Kong store in October 2006.
Sakurada estimated that outlets in China would generate an average of ¥50 million (US$550,000) in annual sales, about 70 percent of the Japan average, he said.
Sales at stores open at least a year in Japan fell 1.1 percent in the first 11 months of this fiscal year.
The fast food company has about 1,340 Japan outlets with menu items that include rice burgers with tempura and barbecued beef.
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
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],”