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.
SETBACK: Apple’s India iPhone push has been disrupted after Foxconn recalled hundreds of Chinese engineers, amid Beijing’s attempts to curb tech transfers Apple Inc assembly partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has recalled about 300 Chinese engineers from a factory in India, the latest setback for the iPhone maker’s push to rapidly expand in the country. The extraction of Chinese workers from the factory of Yuzhan Technology (India) Private Ltd, a Hon Hai component unit, in southern Tamil Nadu state, is the second such move in a few months. The company has started flying in Taiwanese engineers to replace staff leaving, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named, as the
The prices of gasoline and diesel at domestic fuel stations are to rise NT$0.1 and NT$0.4 per liter this week respectively, after international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to rise to NT$27.3, NT$28.8 and NT$30.8 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to rise to NT$26.2 per liter at CPC stations and NT$26 at Formosa pumps, they said. The announcements came after international crude oil prices
STABLE DEMAND: Delta supplies US clients in the aerospace, defense and machinery segments, and expects second-half sales to be similar to the first half Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) expects its US automation business to remain steady in the second half, with no signs of weakening client demand. With demand from US clients remaining solid, its performance in the second half is expected to be similar to that of the first half, Andy Liu (劉佳容), general manager of the company’s industrial automation business group, said on the sidelines of the Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show in Taipei on Wednesday. The company earlier reported that revenue from its automation business grew 7 percent year-on-year to NT$27.22 billion (US$889.98 million) in the first half, accounting for 11 percent
A German company is putting used electric vehicle batteries to new use by stacking them into fridge-size units that homes and businesses can use to store their excess solar and wind energy. This week, the company Voltfang — which means “catching volts” — opened its first industrial site in Aachen, Germany, near the Belgian and Dutch borders. With about 100 staff, Voltfang says it is the biggest facility of its kind in Europe in the budding sector of refurbishing lithium-ion batteries. Its CEO David Oudsandji hopes it would help Europe’s biggest economy ween itself off fossil fuels and increasingly rely on climate-friendly renewables. While
RSS