Two subsidiaries of President Chain Store Corp (PCSC, 統一超商) have increased investments in electronic commerce after the nation’s e-commerce business showed a double-digit growth year-on-year over the past few years.
President Transnet Corp (統一速達), a home delivery service provider mainly held by PCSC, last week said it has invested more than NT$1 million (US$33,760) in upgrading its smartphone application to raise its customer-to-customer business.
“We hope to meet an increasing demand from online vendors,” President Transnet president Robin Hsu (許晉彬) told a press conference.
Hsu said the volume of delivery of smaller packages through e-commerce has continued increasing, accounting for about 45 percent of the company’s overall business, while the volume for delivery of bigger packages has grown by nearly 25 percent in the past three years.
According to the Institute for Information Industry, Taiwan’s e-commerce business market showed a 17 percent growth last year from the previous year, with its annual output expected to reach more than NT$1 trillion in 2015.
Meanwhile, President Starbucks Coffee Corp (統一星巴克), a joint venture between PCSC and the Seattle-based coffee giant, is set to officially unveil its e-commerce business next year, making Taiwan the first place, globally, with online shopping platforms selling Starbucks products.
The company has been testing its online platform on PCSC’s online shopping portal 7net and books.com.tw (博客來) since Oct. 1.
“The trail operation will last around six months,” President Starbucks president John Hsu (徐光宇) said last week. “But we have seen better-than-expected preliminary sales.”
In the first three quarters this year, PCSC saw its net profit stand at NT$6.57 billion, or NT$6.32 per share, up from NT$5.43 billion, or NT$5.23 per share, recorded a year earlier.
Of the parent company’s net profit for the nine-month period, President Transnet contributed NT$150.17 million and President Starbucks contributed NT$128.94 million, according to PCSC’s financial statement.
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