Pacific Sogo Department Stores Co (太平洋崇光百貨) yesterday said it has become more cautious about this year’s business outlook, citing a slew of weaker-than-expected economic data.
The department store chain, which belongs to the Far Eastern Group (遠東集團) that operates seven department stores in the nation, said total sales so far this year have grown mildly by between 3 and 4 percent from the same period last year.
“The buying sentiment has slowed at a faster pace since April, compared with the solid growth pace in the first three months,” Pacific Sogo president James Wang Kuo (汪郭鼎松) told a media briefing yesterday.
Last week, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) cut the nation’s economic growth forecast to 3.28 percent this year from the 3.78 percent it projected in February, as the export-reliant economy is likely to take hit from a weaker global economy.
Although the exports sector was the major factor dragging down the government’s GDP projection, Wang Kuo said that might still gradually affect the momentum of domestic demand, including the department store operator’s sales momentum.
Pacific Sogo had earlier forecast its eight stores nationwide could generate NT$2.6 billion (US$84.41 million) in sales during the month-long Mother’s Day promotion campaign, predicting 3 to 4 percent growth from the same period last year.
However, Wang Kuo said the result was lower than the company’s expectations.
The firm saw annual declines — particularly in sales of jewelry and international luxuries — during the campaign at its three major stores in Taipei: the Zhongxiao, Fuxing and Dunhua stores, Wang Kuo said.
He said the company expects sales momentum to recover in the second half of this year, following tenant adjustments in the first half of the year.
Pacific Sogo added more than 100 tenants in its three Taipei stores during the latest adjustment, Wang Kuo said.
In addition, the department store operator has spent NT$500 million renovating its Dunhua store, which might reopen in September, he said.
The company is targeting 50 percent growth for the store’s sales, he said.
Overall, the three Taipei stores could generate more than NT$30 billion in sales for Pacific Sogo annually in the future, the company said.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained