Taiwan FamilyMart Co (全家便利商店), one of the nation’s largest convenience store operators, said yesterday it had decided to continue to expand, using no less than NT$1.5 billion (US$49.3 million) in capital expenditure for next year.
This year, FamilyMart assigned about NT$1.5 billion in capital expenditure to boost its total number of outlets by about 300 to 2,800 by the end of the year.
FamilyMart chairman Pan Chin-ting (潘進丁) said the local economy had been affected by the escalating debt crisis in Europe.
However, Pan added that his company was not deterred at all by the current sluggishness in economic fundamentals and was determined to continue to expand next year.
Pan said he believed convenience store sales would continue to grow, because the business has become a pillar of the local retail sector with consumption remaining consistent.
He added that future investment would focus on establishing a logistics center that is scheduled for inauguration in the first half of next year, while the company would continue to add new outlets all over the nation.
According to FamilyMart, the company will open more large stores, each with an area of between 30 ping (99m2) and 35 ping, to provide venues in which people can socialize, and the outlets will provide more fresh food.
Currently, the convenience store chain operates more than 500 of the larger outlets across the country.
The company is finalizing its expansion plan for next year and deciding how many new stores will be added, it said.
Meanwhile, Pan said the FamilyMart chain in Taiwan would transform itself into a health food supplier and put more emphasis on environmental protection.
Pan said his company would continue to promote roasted sweet potato, which has become popular among local consumers and is expected to generate NT$200 million in sales for FamilyMart this year.
Sweeping policy changes under US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr are having a chilling effect on vaccine makers as anti-vaccine rhetoric has turned into concrete changes in inoculation schedules and recommendations, investors and executives said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has in the past year upended vaccine recommendations, with the country last month ending its longstanding guidance that all children receive inoculations against flu, hepatitis A and other diseases. The unprecedented changes have led to diminished vaccine usage, hurt the investment case for some biotechs, and created a drag that would likely dent revenues and
Global semiconductor stocks advanced yesterday, as comments by Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) at Davos, Switzerland, helped reinforce investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). Samsung Electronics Co gained as much as 5 percent to an all-time high, helping drive South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI above 5,000 for the first time. That came after the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 3 percent to a fresh record on Wednesday, with a boost from Nvidia. The gains came amid broad risk-on trade after US President Donald Trump withdrew his threat of tariffs on some European nations over backing for Greenland. Huang further
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) shares yesterday notched their best two-day rally on record, as investors flock to the Taiwanese chip designer on excitement over its tie-up with Google. The Taipei-listed stock jumped 8.59 percent, capping a two-session surge of 19 percent and closing at a fresh all-time high of NT$1,770. That extended a two-month rally on growing awareness of MediaTek’s work on Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs), which are chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications. It also highlights how fund managers faced with single-stock limits on their holding of market titan Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are diversifying into other AI-related firms.
RSS