New World Design Center (紐約家具設計中心), a high-end furniture mall operator, said yesterday it expected revenues to grow by as much as 40 percent next year after its new mall begins operation in November.
“This is a mall that we expect to be the top of its class in Asia,” company general manager Darren Hsu (徐培原) said.
New World reported more than NT$1 billion (US$31 million) in sales last year, up 20 percent from 2008, he added.
Taiwan’s furniture market for the mid to high-end buyers is valued at NT$2.3 billion a year and New World aims to seize half of the market share next year with the opening of its new mall.
The company yesterday announced its fourth outlet will be located in Neihu, which will complement to its existing three malls — two in Sinjhuang (新莊), Taipei County, and another in Taichung City. The Neihu mall will span 7,000 ping (23,140m² ) over five stories.
“For our Sinjhuang outlets, more than 50 percent of clientele hail from Taipei. That’s why we have been wanting to set up a base in Taipei,” Hsu said.
The new mall will attract customers with at least 10 brands and a variety of housing accessories, including bedding, pillow, lighting, porcelain and cutlery.
Established in 1998, New World was one of the nation’s first operators to sell different furniture brands in the same location.
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
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