Two of the nation’s restaurant chains — Tai Tong Food & Beverage Group (TTFB, 瓦城泰統集團) and Wowprime Corp (王品) — yesterday said they are optimistic about their business outlook this quarter on the back of the holiday season.
TTFB saw its revenue surge 17.35 percent annually to NT$300.58 million (US$9.24 million) for last month, bolstered by consecutive holidays that prompted higher demand for banquets.
That helped increase the company’s overall revenue by 15.57 percent annually to NT$1.3 billion in the first four months of this year, the firm said in a statement.
Customer traffic and sales at its restaurant chains peaked during the Workers’ Day and Mother’s Day holidays, the company said, without providing further details.
With the Dragon Boat Festival extended holidays from June 9 to 12, the company said it was upbeat that it would increases in both revenue and profits this quarter.
The company also plans to expand the number of outlets of one of its Thai cuisine brands — Very Thai Noodles (大心新泰式麵食) — from 14 now to 16 by the first half of this year in Chiayi and Yilan counties, it said.
“We hope these new stores can attract both local people and tourists to the areas,” the company said.
The group, which operates five restaurant chains, including Thai and Hunan cuisine, has 95 outlets in Taiwan and China.
Wowprime reported a 5.65 percent annual decline in sales to NT$1.22 billion last month, with its cumulative revenue in the first four months of this year dropping 3.81 percent to NT$5.42 billion.
Despite the contraction, the company remained optimistic as it was an improvement from the previous month’s 10.38 percent annual drop, thanks to increasing revenues from its business in Taiwan last month.
Wowprime said it hopes its business can gain momentum next month and beyond, on the back of increasing banquet demand because of the graduation season and summer holidays.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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