Eslite Group (誠品集團) aims to increase group revenue by between 10 percent and 15 percent over the next five years on the back of planned expansion in Taiwan, China and Hong Kong, chairman Robert Wu (吳清友) said yesterday.
The group, which runs bookstores, galleries and department stores, reported a consolidated revenue of NT$13 billion (US$427.98 million) for last year.
Sales for this year could break the NT$14 billion mark, Wu told a media briefing in Taipei after celebrating the group’s 25th anniversary.
Photo: Chang Hui-wen, Taipei Times
The group is set to open its first boutique hotel, with 104 rooms, in Taipei’s Songshan Cultural and Creative Park in the second quarter, and plans to launch its first two department stores in China in the second quarter next year, in Suzhou and Shanghai.
“The outlet in Suzhou may be a department store as large as the company’s flagship outlet in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義),” said Eslite Spectrum Corp (誠品生活) president Mercy Wu (吳旻潔), who is also vice chairwoman of the Eslite Group and Robert Wu’s daughter.
Eslite Spectrum operates department stores and restaurants. The subsidiary also plays an important role in the group’s overall growth and business strategy.
In the long term, the group plans to launch two or three outlets per year in Taiwan and at least one store in an overseas market, most likely in China and Hong Kong, she said.
The group is also eyeing opportunities to operate and manage a city-level cultural complex in China, she added.
Eslite Spectrum reported consolidated sales in the first two months of the year of NT$587.63 million, up 7.83 percent from a year earlier. Its overall revenue for last year stood at NT$3.44 billion, up 15.26 percent from 2012.
The company posted a net profit of NT$234.14 million, or NT$5.24 per share, for the first nine months last year, up from a net income of NT$157.77 million, or NT$3.85 per share, recorded a year earlier.
Real estate agent and property developer JSL Construction & Development Co (愛山林) led the average compensation rankings among companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) last year, while contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) finished 14th. JSL Construction paid its employees total average compensation of NT$4.78 million (US$159,701), down 13.5 percent from a year earlier, but still ahead of the most profitable listed tech giants, including TSMC, TWSE data showed. Last year, the average compensation (which includes salary, overtime, bonuses and allowances) paid by TSMC rose 21.6 percent to reach about NT$3.33 million, lifting its ranking by 10 notches
Popular vape brands such as Geek Bar might get more expensive in the US — if you can find them at all. Shipments of vapes from China to the US ground to a near halt last month from a year ago, official data showed, hit by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a crackdown on unauthorized e-cigarettes in the world’s biggest market for smoking alternatives. That includes Geek Bar, a brand of flavored vapes that is not authorized to sell in the US, but which had been widely available due to porous import controls. One retailer, who asked not to be named, because
SEASONAL WEAKNESS: The combined revenue of the top 10 foundries fell 5.4%, but rush orders and China’s subsidies partially offset slowing demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) further solidified its dominance in the global wafer foundry business in the first quarter of this year, remaining far ahead of its closest rival, Samsung Electronics Co, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. TSMC posted US$25.52 billion in sales in the January-to-March period, down 5 percent from the previous quarter, but its market share rose from 67.1 percent the previous quarter to 67.6 percent, TrendForce said in a report. While smartphone-related wafer shipments declined in the first quarter due to seasonal factors, solid demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) devices and urgent TV-related orders
MINERAL DIPLOMACY: The Chinese commerce ministry said it approved applications for the export of rare earths in a move that could help ease US-China trade tensions Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) is today to meet a US delegation for talks in the UK, Beijing announced on Saturday amid a fragile truce in the trade dispute between the two powers. He is to visit the UK from yesterday to Friday at the invitation of the British government, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. He and US representatives are to cochair the first meeting of the US-China economic and trade consultation mechanism, it said. US President Donald Trump on Friday announced that a new round of trade talks with China would start in London beginning today,
RSS