Nan Ren Hu Leisure Amusement Co Ltd (南仁湖育樂), which operates seven expressway service stations, expects its sales to grow by a double-digit percentage this weekend compared with a normal weekday, as motorists hit the nation’s roads during the four-day national holiday.
The long weekend combining Children’s Day and Tomb Sweeping Day began yesterday and continues through Monday.
Nan Ren Hu said its daily customer flow at its service stations generally shows a double-digit percentage growth during holiday weekends compared with weekdays.
This year, there are six weekend holidays, more than in previous years, which should potentially boost Nan Ren Hu’s sales, which rose 13.3 percent year-on-year in the first two months of the year to NT$292.95 million (US$9.36 million).
To boost customer flow, the company plans to adopt different topics with which to decorate its service stations, while readjusting their product mixes, Nan Ren Hu said.
Plans to transform the service stations into leisure attractions would also help sustain sales momentum, the company said.
Nan Ren Hu posted net income of NT$165.27 million, or earnings per share of NT$0.66, last year, up 34.62 percent from NT$122.77 million, or earnings per share of NT$0.44, the previous year.
Meanwhile, the nation’s two major convenience store operators — President Chain Store Corp (PCSC, 統一超商) and Taiwan FamilyMart Co (全家便利商店) — also said they are expecting higher sales during the long weekend.
PCSC, which operates the nation’s largest convenience store chain, 7-Eleven, said the company has prepared an additional 20 percent of beverages and snack food to cope with the expected strong demand from domestic travelers over the weekend.
Taiwan FamilyMart has launched a sales campaign for exclusive picnic products, as it expects many people will go for a picnic during the weekend because of the warm weather.
PCSC’s consolidated sales in the first two months of this year totaled NT$32.08 billion, up 0.37 percent from the previous year, while Taiwan FamilyMart posted NT$8.84 billion in consolidated revenue, an increase of 3.08 percent from the same period last year.
Last year, the two companies reported the highest profits in their history, with PCSC’s net income increasing 13.06 percent year-on-year to NT$9.09 billion, or earnings per share of NT$8.74, while Taiwan FamilyMart’s net income rose 18.24 percent to NT$1.29 billion, or earnings per share of NT$5.8, according to companies’ financial data.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San