PChome Online Inc (網路家庭) expects to increase sales twofold during next month’s Double 11 e-commerce shopping event, executives said yesterday.
The company has extended this year’s shopping event from four to five days and expects to make NT$3 billion (US$96.85 million) in sales, up from NT$1.5 billion last year, they told a news conference in Taipei.
In anticipation of the immense volume of orders during the event, the company has prepared more than NT$10 billion in inventory, chief executive officer Kevin Tsai (蔡凱文) said.
The company is the first local e-commerce operator to install an automated guided vehicle (AGV) system, which is being put through its paces at its Taichung warehouse.
Other logistics investments include a bigger company-operated delivery fleet, as well as a third fleet depot servicing Taipei and New Taipei City, Tsai said.
The company would also continue to fine-tune its capabilities in artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning to better predict consumer trends and place inventory where it is needed, as well as optimize its delivery routes, he said, adding that the implementation of these technologies comes with a steep learning curve.
The company’s AI systems have previously misjudged regional demand, which resulted in sub-optimal inventory allocation, Tsai said, adding that AGV systems do not bring immediate improvements.
LABOR SHORTAGE
A scarcity of labor has also slowed expansion of its delivery fleet, Tsai said.
“We have established a task force to improve coordination between warehouses and defuse difficulties when our AI system’s predictions are off the mark,” Tsai said.
The firm, which was hard hit during a subsidy war with foreign challengers such as Shopee Taiwan Co (樂購蝦皮), now faces another formidable opponent entering Taiwan’s market.
To fend off Taobao (淘寶), the company would continue to differentiate its catalog with more South Korean and Japanese products, such as cosmetics, Tsai said.
APPLE, XIAOMI
PChome has also signed on as an official distributor for Apple Inc and Xiaomi Corp (小米), putting it in a better position to offer steeper incentives while preserving profitability on consumer electronics, Tsai said.
PChome’s sales last month rose 14.8 percent annually to NT$2.71 billion, while sales in the first nine months rose 15 percent annually to NT$24.25 billion.
Rival TV and online retailer Momo.com Inc (富邦媒體) reported that sales last month rose 22.5 percent annually to NT$3.22 billion and 27.2 percent annually to NT$29.63 billion in the first nine months of the year.
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
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by