E-commerce company PChome Online Inc (網路家庭) on Sunday posted its highest September sales, driven by purchases of portable barbecue devices, especially electric grills, as many people celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival at home last month.
Barbecuing is popular during the holiday in Taiwan, but most local city and county governments banned grilling in public spaces this year to prevent large gatherings due COVID-19 concerns.
Consolidated sales increased 18.56 percent year-on-year to NT$3.56 billion (US$126.9 million), the company said in a statement, adding that new phones launched by Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co stimulated demand and lent support to the company’s sales momentum.
Photo courtesy of PChome Online Inc
Nevertheless, on a monthly basis, sales dropped 8.2 percent, marking the retailer’s third consecutive month of decreasing monthly sales.
As consumers continue shifting to online purchases of household goods, food, computers and electronic devices amid the COVID-19 pandemic, PChome’s sales for last quarter reached a record high of NT$11.41 billion, up 10.65 percent from the previous quarter.
Cumulative sales in the first nine months totaled NT$34.63 billion, up 10.7 percent from the same period last year, company data showed.
The company did not provide sales guidance for this quarter, but said it is gearing up for the peak year-end shopping season, including the upcoming “Double 11” shopping event, to maintain its sales momentum.
The company plans to integrate group resources and launch special promotions on its various platforms to take advantage of the Quintuple Stimulus Voucher program and further spur revenue growth in the fourth quarter, it said.
PChome Online owns several subsidiaries, including the shopping platform PChome 24h Shopping, online auction site Ruten.com (露天拍賣), e-commerce start-up PChomestore Inc (商店街), fashion e-commerce platform MiTCH (覓去), travel e-commerce platform PChome Travel (網路家庭旅行社), mobile payment solution Pi Wallet (拍錢包) and electronic payment solution PChome InterPay (國際連), the company’s Web site shows.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
RSS