Restaurant chain operator Wowprime Corp (王品) yesterday unveiled a new spicy hot pot brand, aiming to seize opportunities in the nation’s NT$5 billion (US$169.92 million) hot pot market.
Chin Huajiao (青花驕), the company’s 18th brand in Taiwan, plans to serve spicy hot pot featuring tongue-numbing flavors and peppers directly imported from Chongqing, China.
“We think the growth momentum of the whole hot pot market has not yet peaked [despite intensifying competition in Taiwan],” a Wowprime official said at a media gathering in Taipei.
The company plans to open three or four Chin Huajiao outlets in Taiwan this year after spending nearly NT$25 million on its first new store located on Taipei’s Zhongshan N Road.
Customers are expected to spend about NT$650 per person at Chin Huajiao, higher than average purchases at the group’s other two hot pot chains, 12 Sabu (石二鍋) and Hokkaido Konbu Hot Pot (聚北海道昆布鍋), Wowprime said.
Same-store sales of the new brand are likely to reach between NT$8 million and NT$10 million per month, the company said.
Wowprime, which follows a multi-brand strategy to maintain its long-term profitability, plans to launch a Japanese Izakaya brand in the Chinese market by the end of this month, as well as two additional new brands in Taiwan and one in China in the second half of this year, the company said, without elaborating on this year’s outlet expansion plan or capital budget.
Wowprime on Wednesday posted an annual decrease in cumulative revenue of 1.79 percent for last year, as slower sales dragged down profit in the domestic market, a company statement said.
Revenue decreased from NT$16.11 billion in 2016 to NT$15.82 billion last year, with Taiwan operations falling 4.08 percent to NT$8.96 billion and China sales increasing 1.36 percent to NT$6.86 billion, the company said.
However, Wowprime saw sales increase 1.47 percent year-on-year to NT$3.85 billion in the fourth quarter, ending five consecutive quarters of decline, it said.
The company attributed the improvement to a restructuring plan that aims to tap into the emerging casual dining market by launching mid-priced brands, such as CooK BEEF (酷必), Ma Lao Da (麻佬大) and Zha Beef (乍牛).
Taichung-headquartered Wowprime, which runs a total of 21 brands, operates 266 outlets in Taiwan and 150 in China, company data showed.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure