President Chain Store Corp (統一超商) yesterday opened its 5,000th 7-Eleven convenience store, in Greater Kaohsiung, a year ahead of plans, as convenience stores have increasingly become an integral part of life for Taiwanese.
Since it opened the first 7-Eleven store in Taiwan in 1980, President Chain has cornered a competitive market with a diversified operating model and a nearly 50 percent market share.
With more than 10,000 convenience stores in operation in a nation of 23 million people, sustaining profitability has become a major challenge for operators. However, the market leader yesterday said the market is not yet saturated.
Photo: Chen Yu-cheng, Taipei Times
“Lifestyles in Taiwan are in transition, and customer spending habits and preferences are changing, which means the retail sector is entering a new era of development,” the Chinese-language Apple Daily’s online news site yesterday quoted President Chain chairman Alex Lo (羅智先) as saying.
With this change in mind, Lo said the number of stores was not important, but the products and services President Chain could offer its customers are.
Lo was interviewed as the company launched its newest store in Greater Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) yesterday, a day after the company reported its cumulative sales for the first half of the year had hit a record level.
Sales in the first six months totaled NT$101.44 billion (US$3.38 billion), an increase of 3.59 percent from the same period last year, the company said in an e-mailed statement.
The company, which reported NT$2.97 billion in net profit in the first quarter with earnings per share of NT$2.86, has not yet released its second-quarter profit report.
On Wednesday, domestic rival Taiwan FamilyMart Co (全家便利商店) reported sales of NT$4.91 billion last month, the highest figures for June in the company’s history, with accumulated sales in the first half rising 5 percent year-on-year to NT$27.31 billion.
President Chain attributed the strong earnings to rising sales of beverages, as well as increasing e-commerce and online shopping revenues, according to the statement.
Domestic subsidiaries such as cosmetics retailer Cosmed (康是美) and parcel delivery unit President Transnet Corp (統一速達), and overseas units including Philippine 7-Eleven and Shanghai Starbucks also reported higher sales, President Chain said.
The company said sales growth momentum should continue this month, driven by various marketing activities designed to take advantage of purchases made during the summer vacation and the FIFA World Cup.
Lo said that the company has opened stores in all the major cities and townships of the nation and would continue to open more stores.
“Sometimes, I can’t help wondering how many convenience stores Taiwan can accommodate,” Lo was quoted as saying. “Basically, the convenience store business in Taiwan is unique in the world. It is just so convenient.”
By adopting larger stores and offering more value-added services, such as online shopping and offering tickets for public transportation, the nation’s major convenience store chains have developed into the model of a one-stop shop.
In the first five months of the year, they posted total sales of NT$117.8 billion, up 5.4 percent year-on-year and accounting for 26.71 percent of the nation’s total retail sales, data from the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed last month.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS