Online retailer Amazon.com announced yesterday its Japanese site had attracted one million shoppers in record time and would soon become its largest earner outside the US.
Amazon.co.jp also cemented its first partnership with British music shop Virgin MegaStore, which will use the Web site to host its own Internet shopping pages by the end of the year.
"The Japanese site, only 18 months after its launch, has one million customers which is a very remarkable result and is the fastest site in terms of achieving this," said Diego Piacentini, senior vice-president of worldwide retail and marketing at the US-based Internet giant.
"[It is because of] a combination of customer experience, price ... and selection," he told foreign reporters during a trip to Tokyo.
Japan will become Amazon's largest income maker outside the US "in the very foreseeable future," Piacentini said.
The parent company reported Tuesday a net loss of US$94 million for the second quarter to June, shrinking from a net loss of US$168 million in the same period a year ago.
But revenue grew 21 percent to US$806 million over the three months, with sales from Amazon's British, German, French and Japanese sites up 70 percent to US$218 million. The interactive retailer opened another site in Canada last month.
Amazon does not disclose financial figures for individual countries, but Piacentini said the Japan site was set to beat a sales target of US$100 million in 2002.
"We will go beyond that," he said, adding the Japanese unit should become profitable in less than three years after opening in November 2000, beating the German and British sites which both took 36 months.
Although Amazon plans to focus on improving services at its six global Internet malls -- which account for 92 percent of total e-commerce -- further expansion was definitely on the cards.
"Clearly we see the potential in countries like Korea or China but for the time being we will deal with those countries through exports, but clearly it is not a matter of if we want to do an expansion it is a matter of when and how," Piacentini said.
Amazon sells music and videos as well as books in Japan and aims to introduce consumer electronic goods which are already sold on its US and British Web pages.
The firm's business model, with low inventories and minimal capital investment requirements due to an absence of physical retail outlets, would make it "become a machine producing cash," said the executive.
Bricks and mortar stores pay through the roof for land to expand as real estate prices are increasing in the long term. Conversely e-commerce sites grow through new technology, which costs less and less, Piacentini said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS