Restaurant chain operator Wowprime Corp (王品集團) yesterday said it will stick to its strategy of having multiple brands to boost earnings, after experiencing fallout from the string of food safety crises over the past two months.
The company saw consolidated sales in the first 11 months of the year reach NT$15.52 billion (US$495.89 million), up 15.19 percent from a year earlier, even though last month’s sales dropped 3.9 percent year-on-year and 11.3 percent month-on-month.
While market watchers have expected food safety issues to temper the company’s profit this quarter, Wowprime expects a better outlook next year on the back of its multiple brand approach.
Chamonix, a premium teppanyaki restaurant brand under Wowprime, is set to generate NT$1.3 billion sales next year, an increase of more than 6 percent from this year, Wowprime said yesterday.
Chamonix, which has 16 outlets nationwide — mostly in northern Taiwan — might open new venues in Greater Taichung and Greater Kaohsiung next year, Wowprime said.
Over the long term, the firm plans to keep the total number of Chamonix outlets at 20, it said.
“Since 40 percent of Chamonix’s sales come from holidays and celebrations, the team is coming up with more creative celebration ideas and features that can attract customers on these occasions,” Chamonix director Amber Chiu (邱瀕儀) told a news conference yesterday.
With a relatively high average expenditure rate of about NT$1,000 per customer, the teppanyaki chain also hopes to draw more clients in the 20 to 25 age groups to expand its consumer base, Chiu added.
Alongside the premium Chamonix brand, Wowprimes also focuses on its medium-priced brands, such as Ita, which are major contributors to its sales.
Wowprime, which operates 15 restaurant chains in Taiwan, China and Singapore, unveiled Italian restaurant chain Ita in June.
Wowprime plans to open nine Ita outlets next year, with the aim of raising the chain’s sales to NT$170 million, Ita president Annie Yang (楊秀慧) said.
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New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last