Gourmet Master Co Ltd (美食達人), which operates the popular 85°C (85度C) chain, is scheduled to launch its third outlet in California — the first outlet in the region wholly owned by the company — in the middle of this month.
The company plans to expand its 85°C bakery-and-coffee chain in the US to 20 outlets within five years to raise revenue and profitability.
“The sales and profitability of outlets in the US show the strongest momentum,” Chris Lee (李翰霖), vice president of investor relations at Gourmet Master, told an investors’ conference yesterday.
Therefore, Gourmet Master has shifted its strategy in the US to opening more wholly-owned outlets, compared with the original plan to launch outlets in joint ventures with US companies, Lee said.
The company has two 85°C outlets located around Los Angeles, with more stores set to be launched in the city.
Compared with the US market, Lee said Gourmet Master may open outlets in Taiwan and China at a slower pace next year, while focusing more on increasing sales at its existing stores.
However, the China market would remain the major source of the company’s sales in the near future, Lee added.
NEW OUTLETS
Under a preliminary plan, the company — which has 360 85°C outlets in China — may launch 50 to 100 outlets in China next year, down from 110 new outlets expected to open this year.
Lee said most of next year’s new Chinese stores would be located in cities that have existing 85°C outlets, as the company has more experience of boosting sales in those areas.
Meanwhile, Gourmet Master may launch more outlets in second-tier and third-tier cities in China in the long term, as it is eyeing stronger growth in private consumption in these regions, Lee added.
The company posted consolidated sales of NT$978.7 million (US$33.61 million) last month, up 16.08 percent from the previous year, but down 4.05 percent from September, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
Annual growth in revenue in early October slowed due to China’s week-long national holiday, but Lee said momentum has been gradually improving since the middle of last month and that could continue until the end of the year.
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six