Three major listed restaurant operators posted record revenues last month, bolstered by seasonal demand led by Father’s Day and the second month of the summer school vacation.
Tai Tong Food & Beverage Group (TTFB, 瓦城泰統集團) posted NT$294.94 million (US$9.82 million) in consolidated sales last month, a jump of 30.19 percent from a year earlier and 13.02 percent from July, the company said in a statement yesterday.
The improved sales last month helped boost the group’s consolidated revenue in the first eight months of the year to NT$1.97 billion, up 28.62 percent from a year ago, the statement showed.
“The strong seasonal demand during the summer vacation — a peak period for the food and beverage sector — helped drive up the group’s sales over the past two months,” the statement said.
Father’s Day — which falls on on Aug. 8 in Taiwan — also bolstered business for the group’s restaurants, which cited strong demand from celebrations.
SHANGHAI TRIAL
In addition, TTFB conducted trial operations in Shanghai for the first outlet of its fifth brand, Ten Ten Hunan Bistro (十食湘BISTRO), for nearly a month, raising the group’s total outlets in Taiwan and China to 66 as of the end of last month, the group said.
The group had planned to expand the brand 1010 Hunan Cuisine (1010湘辣料理) — which has 10 outlets in Taiwan — to China, but decided to create a new Hunan cuisine brand especially for the Chinese market,
The new brand’s average customer spending is between 150 and 200 yuan (US$24.50 and US$32.60), it said.
WOWPRIME
The strong seasonal demand also saw Wowprime Corp’s (王品集團) consolidated sales last month reach a record-high of NT$1.78 billion, up 18.36 percent from a month earlier and 18.67 percent from a year earlier, according to a company statement released yesterday.
Accumulated revenue for the first eight months of the year rose 18.81 percent from a year ago to NT$11.7 billion, company figures showed.
As of the end of last month, Wowprime owned 15 restaurant chains with a total of 401 outlets in Taiwan, China and Singapore.
GOURMET MASTER
Gourmet Master Co (美食達人), which operates the 85°C (85度C) bakery-and-coffee chain — with outlets in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Australia and the US — reported NT$1.75 billion in consolidated revenue last month, up 33 percent from a year ago, the company said in a statement yesterday.
Accumulated revenue in the first eight months rose by nearly 20 percent from a year ago to NT$11.57 billion, company data showed.
It was the 14th consecutive month that the company posted same-store growth in sales in China from a year earlier, with total revenue from China rising 17 percent year-on-year last month to account for more than 70 percent of the company’s overall sales, the statement said.
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