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Category: General

Retail News Asia is committed to providing both local and global retailers with the latest General Retail news throughout the Asian market. This on a daily base.

  • AirAsia boosts third-quarter profit 5% amid strong revenue rise

    AirAsia boosts third-quarter profit 5% amid strong revenue rise

    AirAsia Group‘s third-quarter profit rose 4.6% to more than MYR264 million ($63.3 million) as revenue and passenger numbers increased.

    Revenue for the quarter ended 30 September was up 18% at MYR3.07 billion. Group-wide traffic likewise grew 18%, slightly lower than the 19% increase in capacity. This resulted in a two-point load-factor decline, to 84%.

    Expenses related to staff, maintenance and user charges rose amid expansion. Depreciation costs meanwhile grew, reflecting the adoption of a new accounting standard on leases.

    AirAsia made a net loss of MYR67.5 million as it took hits from foreign exchange and fair-value losses on derivatives. The previous year, it had made a MYR804 million net profit in the third quarter.

    On a nine-month basis, AirAsia‘s operating profit halved to MYR707 million, despite a 17% lift in revenue to MYR9.09 billion. Net profit shrunk 96% to MYR99.5 million.

    Across the airline operations, third-quarter EBITDA more than doubled to MYR662 million. The group’s overseas units in Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand all improved their performance, while the one in India narrowed its losses.

    Thai AirAsia‘s EBITDAR rose 20.5% to Bt1.32 billion ($43.7 million), while revenue grew 5.3% to Bt9.42 billion. The airline attributes a Bt761 million loss after tax to exchange-rate effects and notes that unit revenue is under pressure as a result of competitors’ low pricing.

    Indonesia AirAsia‘s third-quarter EBITDA was narrowly positive at Rp415 million ($29,000); revenue swelled 72% to Rp1.83 trillion. Net profit came in at Rp61.2 billion, reversing a Rp214 billion net loss in the same period last year.

    Philippines AirAsia‘s EBITDA came in at nearly Ps1 billion ($19.7 million), reversing a Ps1.32 billion loss in the same quarter of 2018. Revenue jumped 40% to Ps6.23 billion, and the operation’s net loss narrowed to Ps367 million.

    AirAsia India narrowed its EBITDA loss to Rs1.2 billion ($16.8 million), as revenue climbed 58% to Rs7.24 billion. Loss after tax was flat at Rs3.1 billion. AirAsia says the unit’s costs grew in line with capacity increases.

    Meanwhile, AirAsia Japan made a net loss of Y3.71 billion ($33.9 million).

    As of 30 September, the AirAsia Group had MYR2.18 billion in cash and cash equivalents – some MYR4.43 billion less than it had on the same date last year.

    AirAsia Group says newly delivered Airbus A321neos will be deployed on routes with high demand and constrained infrastructure, in an effort to reduce unit cost.

    In 2020, the group will make a net addition of 12 aircraft to its fleet. Malaysia AirAsia will not take any aircraft, while Thai AirAsia will remove three jets. Indonesia AirAsia and AirAsia Japan will each receive three jets, and Philippines AirAsia two. The bulk of the growth will be at AirAsia India, which will add seven aircraft.

    The airline group foresees a “positive… core performance” during the fourth quarter. It says: “As the group repositions the business to adapt to the evolving business environment along with new accounting treatment and restructured aircraft ownership, we look forward to a better year in 2020.”

  • American Eagle closing all Japanese stores

    American Eagle closing all Japanese stores

    All American Eagle and Aerie stores in Japan are set for closure by year-end.

    Eagle Retailing Corporation, the Japanese partner of American Eagle Outfitters, said it is shutting down all American Eagle and Aerie stores including its digital business in Japan starting from December 18, with the exit to be completed by the end of the month.

    The closure forms part of Eagle Retailing’s decision to shift focus to business wear and the mutual termination of a license agreement with Pennsylvania-based American Eagle Outfitters.

    Denim brand American Eagle and lingerie brand Aerie has been operating in the Japanese market for seven years. Eagle Retailing opened the first store in 2012, two years after signing the license agreement. The two brands currently have 33 combined brick-and-mortar stores, complemented with an e-commerce business.

    However, American Eagle Outfitters says it remains committed to continued growth in the Japanese market despite the closure.

    “The company is exploring options for its future business model and is taking steps to reposition its distribution channels to best serve customers,” it said.

    “We thank our partners at Eagle Retailing for establishing a strong brand presence and we look forward to our next chapter of growth,” the company added.

  • The Shilla Duty Free unveils Montblanc boutique

    The Shilla Duty Free unveils Montblanc boutique

    International travel retailer The Shilla Duty-Free has partnered with men’s luxury accessories brand Montblanc to unveil a new standalone boutique concept at the Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA).

    The new boutique concept is The Shilla Duty-Free’s latest approach to rejuvenate its fashion and accessories offer, aiming to provide an accessible luxury experience. In homage to Montblanc’s heritage of writing and craftsmanship, the rounded and curved shape of the immersive retail environment, as well as the store’s rear wall furniture designs, are inspired by the art of cursive calligraphy and reminiscent of the “art nouveau era” when Montblanc was founded.

    The new Montblanc boutique will offer the brand’s best-selling products across all major categories at HKIA, including writing instruments, watches, leather goods and accessories. A curated selection of premium and unique products such as seasonal limited editions will also be available in store. The store is targeting sophisticated millennials, business travelers and “other discerning clientele”.

    The new boutique concept will be offering personalization services for its products, such as artistry limited-edition pieces, engraving services for writing instruments and hot stamping for leather goods.

    Montblanc Hong Kong & Macau MD Pierre-Etienne said the company wanted its products to make the travel experience as enjoyable as possible, “leaving room to learn about the world around us, inspiring us to leave our mark”.

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  • Best Mart 360 sales soar on new store openings

    Best Mart 360 sales soar on new store openings

    A significant expansion in Best Mart 360’s store network has helped boost sales in the first half, despite the company being heavily impacted by protests since June.

    As at the end of September, Best Mart 360 operated 98 stores, a net 21 more than the same time a year earlier.

    It opened 14 new stores and closed five existing ones during the period, mainly due to the consolidation of stores in close proximity or upon expiration of leases.

    The self-described “leisure food retailer” reported sales growth of 14.7 percent in the first half, to HK$609.857 million, despite the headwinds caused by US-China trade tensions and a sharp decline of private consumption spending due to “the outburst of domestic upheaval in Hong Kong” in June.

    Profit attributable to shareholders slipped by 6 percent to $13.457 million, “mainly attributable to certain adverse impact on the normal business operation of the retail stores of the group caused by the recent social movement in Hong Kong,” the company said.

    Many of the company’s stores have been targeted by radical protestors who ransacked interiors and destroyed stock, claiming the company’s owners were associated with attacks on the protest movement.

    The social disorder has had a positive side for Best Mart 360, however. The group says it has received short term rental reductions ranging from 3 percent to 30 percent for periods ranging from one to six months from some landlords, in response to the deterioration in the overall business environment in Hong Kong.

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  • Florim opens Singapore flagship store

    Florim opens Singapore flagship store

    Italian ceramic tile maker Florim is opening a flagship store in Singapore tomorrow.

    The two-storey outlet is the group’s first showroom in Asia, featuring a well-lit open-space interior showcasing the brand’s best-sellers. The interior areas are intended to provide a functional workplace, with a co-working approach.

    “We began transforming what everyone thought was just a tile into a vital design tool more than 50 years ago,” said Florim Ceramiche chairman Claudio Lucchese. “And now the time is ripe to spread and share our experience and passion at a global level. Florim is not a ceramic-coverings firm that aims to give its products design connotations; it is a design firm that produces ceramic materials”.

    The store concept, created by the company’s in-house design department to reflect the firm’s other corporate locations, adopts the same design language as its Milan, New York and Moscow flagships.

    The Singapore store is expected to assist Florim in establishing ties with big architecture firms. The flagship – located at 63 Mohamed Sultan Road – will be followed by other openings next year.

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  • Tigerair Cancels Flights From The Whitsundays To Sydney

    Tigerair Cancels Flights From The Whitsundays To Sydney

    Tigerair has announced it will cancel flights from Whitsunday airport to Sydney in early 2020. Flights will still continue over the Christmas and New Year period, but anyone who has booked the service from Feb 2020 onwards will be notified by the airline.  Direct flights will still continue to be available through Jetstar.

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  • Harry Potter merchandise retailer launches in the Philippines

    Harry Potter merchandise retailer launches in the Philippines

    Scotland-based Harry Potter merchandise retailer Museum Context has launched its first Philippine store at SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City.

    The store, which specializes in licensed Harry Potter products, is operated by an avid fan of the books and movies, Katsie Llave, who during a trip with her father to Edinburgh, came across the Museum Context flagship store on Victoria Street. At the same time, she happened to meet its founder Andrew McRae, who agreed to partner with her in developing the concept in the Philippines.

    Llave, who also runs events company Patronus, describes the partnership with McRae, as a perfect opportunity “to create magical moments for fans, by fans”.

    “Every item in this shop has been selected with genuine excitement and dedication to the brand, and we are confident that fans will fall in love with this just as much as we have,” she said.

    “Our first weeks of trading have exceeded all our expectations and is proof that the magic lives on,” she said.

    Museum Context, founded in 2007, operates four stores in Edinburgh. In 2011, McRae took the concept to Hong Kong, and has since expanded to several locations including one at Hong Kong International Airport, which opened earlier this year.

    McRae sees Asia as a key growth market and says that the Philippine foray acts a gateway for future expansion in the region.

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  • AirAsia birthday extend to Thailand

    AirAsia birthday extend to Thailand

    Following on from the launch of low-fares and holiday deals in Kuala Lumpur earlier this week, Thai AirAsia is marking the group’s 18th birthday with more promotions.

    Promotional fares are as low as THB318 for BIG members and THB361 for a non-member on domestic routes from Bangkok to Ubon Ratchathani, Udon Thani, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Krabi, and Khon Kaen.

    On international routes, the deals include bargain fares to Can Tho, Danang, Ho Chi Minh, Macau, Jaipur and Shantou.

    A return flight plus a two-night hotel package has a starting price of THB1,999 per person.

    Other deals include 8% off all add-on baggage selections and an 8% discount on a comprehensive insurance plan.

    The special fares are available on airasia.com and the AirAsia mobile app until 1 December for travel from 27 April 2020 to 1 March 2021. All-in fares including taxes and fees

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  • Taiwan retail sales hit new high in October

    Taiwan retail sales hit new high in October

    Taiwan retail sales set a record in October, according to data from the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA).

    Retail sales rose 4.2 percent year on year to NT$340.7 billion (US$11.16 billion), the highest ever recorded for October and following year-on-year sales increases for every month of this year to date.

    The figures indicate that global trade tensions have largely not impacted private consumption in the country.

    “Wealth effects arising from a booming local stock market prompted consumers to shop,” said MOEA’s statistics department deputy head Wang Shu-chuan, “although the domestic economy has been affected by a global slowdown amid unfavorable trade issues.”

    Taiwanese retail sales by department stores rose 2.5 percent to NT$40.6 billion ($1.33 billion) while supermarket sales grew 8.8 percent to NT$18.0 billion ($590 million).

    For the first 10 months of the year, Taiwan retail sales rose 2.9 percent.

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  • Singapore Airlines Will Fly New A380s To Paris

    Singapore Airlines Will Fly New A380s To Paris

    In November 2017, Singapore Airlines revealed the details of their new A380 Suites & business class products. The airline has just taken delivery of five new Airbus A380s featuring these cabins, and at the same time they’ve retired five A380s, so that the number of A380s in their fleet has remained constant.

    On top of that, Singapore Airlines plans to reconfigure the existing 14 A380s with the new cabins. While this was initially supposed to happen between 2018 and 2020, they’re behind schedule on that. As of now only a single A380 has been reconfigured with the new cabins.

    So I’d expect the project to take longer than through 2020.

    I flew Singapore Airlines roundtrip on their new A380 shortly after it was introduced — I flew from Singapore to Sydney in their new business class, and from Sydney to Singapore in their new Suites.

    Overall I was reasonably impressed by both products, but not blown away. Business class was a marginal improvement over their old business class product. I rank it as number eight on my list of the world’s nine best business class seats. The seat is spacious, though still has the downside of requiring you to sleep at an angle towards the side of the plane in order to be able to fully stretch your legs.

    As it stands, Singapore Airlines flies their new A380s to Hong Kong, London, Shanghai, Sydney, and Zurich. Frequencies do vary, so you’ll want to check the seatmap for your flght to be sure it features the new cabins (if there are six seats in Suites, then it’s the new cabin).

    Furthermore, as of January 2020 they’ll fly the new A380 to Tokyo Narita.

    As of July 1, 2020, Singapore Airlines will fly the reconfigured A380 on their Singapore to Paris route, with the following schedule:

    SQ336 Singapore to Paris departing 12:15AM arriving 7:35AM
    SQ335 Paris to Singapore departing 12:00PM arriving 6:50AM (+1 day)

    This is a logical enough addition, given that Paris is one of Singapore Airlines’ most premium markets. I do wish they’d fly the A380 to New York already (via Frankfurt), but with how long that flight is, it’s not surprising that they’re holding off.

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  • 7-Eleven Malaysia’s profit up 10 per cent year on year

    7-Eleven Malaysia’s profit up 10 per cent year on year

    7-Eleven Malaysia’s profit surged 10 percent year on year in the third quarter.

    Figures released by the firm showed sales growth of 4.5 percent during the quarter and a 5.1-percentage point improvement in gross profit margin.

    The firm opened 53 new stores during the period, taking the total network to 2382 stores.

    7-Eleven Malaysia’s profit improvement looks set to continue in quarters. “We are confident that continuous implementation and improvement of our strategic roadmap in strengthening the key areas of assortment, supply chain, operational excellence, store base and digitally enabling the organization will continue to deliver positive results despite challenging headwinds as we look forward to ensuring that 7-Eleven remains as Malaysian consumers preferred convenience store brand,” said CEO Colin Harvey.

    The company’s board said trading conditions for the next quarter are expected to be stable.

    “We will continue to focus on our customer’s needs, pursuing our core strategy pillars of operational excellence, cost management and commercial innovation, at the same time refreshing the 7-Eleven brand in the mind of customers through refreshed stores, innovations in our pricing, promotions, and developing exciting products,” read a statement from the board.

  • Cebu Pacific cut flight delays in October

    Cebu Pacific cut flight delays in October

    Budget airline Cebu Pacific recorded minimal flight delays in October as on-time performance went up.

    The Department of Transportation (DOTr) said on Monday that Cebu Pacific posted an on-time performance of almost 85 percent last month, better than the 80.66 percent in September.

    A flight is considered on time if it leaves within 15 minutes of the scheduled departure.

    “The improved OTP is a result of the close cooperation and coordination with concerned government agencies to minimize delays across our network,” Michael Ivan Shau, Cebu Pacific chief operations officer, said in the statement.

    Earlier, flag carrier Philippine Airlines said on-time performance in the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia), the country’s busiest gateway, hit 92 percent for the month of October.

    The DOTr noted in the statement that improved efficiency followed the signing in June of a commitment to decongest Naia and support the development of other gateways, including the Sangley Airport in Cavite.

    “I am happy that months after we signed the pledge of commitment, we continue to see improvements in OTP across the industry. I hope these efforts are sustained to make air travel in the Philippines more efficient and comfortable,” Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade said in the statement.

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  • AirAsia Receives Its First Airbus A321neo by

    AirAsia Receives Its First Airbus A321neo by

    At a delivery ceremony in Hamburg, Germany, budget airline Air Asia took delivery of its very first Airbus A321neo. The event took place on Wednesday under grey skies and wet conditions. The narrowbody long-haul jet will begin operating this week from AirAsia’s hub in Kuala Lumpur to cities across Asia. Destinations already identified include Kuching and Kota Kinabalu

    The Star also reports that it had its ferry flight back home after the ceremony, with over 30 media personnel from the Southeast Asian region as well as AirAsia staff. According to sources included FlightRadar24 and Planespotters, the airplane has been assigned the registration 9M-VAA and includes a unique and ‘funky’ livery.

    “We could not be more thrilled that it will be the new backbone of our operations across the AirAsia Group. With the 25% increase capacity and 10% reduction in cost per seat, the A321neo will enable us to maintain low fares so ‘Everyone Can Fly!’…This new generation aircraft delivers significant capacity and cost benefits which we can pass on to our guests in the form of great value fares and it also unlocks exciting network expansion opportunities allowing us to fly the aircraft for an additional one and a half hours longer.” -AirAsia Indonesia chief executive officer Veranita Yosephine

    A recent Twitter post about the delivery (shown below) mentions that this is the first aircraft out of the 353 ordered from Airbus. In fact, the delivery of this particular model is part of AirAsia’s plan to move from its existing fleet of A320neo aircraft to the larger A321neo.

    AirAsia revealed the order for the A321neo at the Paris Air Show this year. The airline announced the conversion of 253 A320neos to the larger A321neos. This will make AirAsia the largest customer in the world for this type.

    The larger A321neo offers 50 seats more over the current A320neos. Furthermore, it also provides 40% more cargo space as well as “expanded seating capacity with optimized use of cabin space”.

    The upscaling of the order back in June was welcomed news for Airbus. Although the quantity of aircraft ordered stayed the same, all of them being converted from existing A320 orders marks the biggest order for the larger variant of the narrowbody to date. It also signifies a massive vote of confidence for the type.

    The A321neo is the longest variant of the popular A320 family of aircraft. In fact, with the new improvements of the neo (new engine option), there is an expected 20% increase in fuel efficiency from the A321ceo (conventional engine option). Efficiency features include new generation engines and fuel-saving Sharklets.

  • AirAsia and AirAsia X have been named best low-cost airline in Asia again

    AirAsia and AirAsia X have been named best low-cost airline in Asia again

    AirAsia and its partner airline AirAsia X have been jointly named the best low-cost airline in Asia Pacific again at this year’s Airline Excellence Awards by AirlineRatings.com.

    The award is judged by the Australia-based aviation website through a five-star rating system considering factors such as in-flight entertainment, cabin space and comfort, beverages, food, and seat recline.

    This is the second time the Malaysian low-cost carrier has bagged the award, after taking the title from Scoot in 2018.

    Geoffrey Thomas, editor-in-chief at AirlineRatings.com, said that the AirAsia win was “richly deserved” and that the airline is in a “dominant market position”

    “These airlines have made travel affordable for tens of millions throughout Asia, and they offer outstanding value and a great experience,” he added.

    In June, AirAsia has also named the world’s best low-cost airline at the Skytrax World Airline Awards.

    AirAsia Group chief executive Tony Fernandes said in a statement that the airline will continue to focus on “delivering the very best value airfares for short, medium and long haul travel throughout Asia Pacific”.

    The airline is currently looking at slashing fuel burns to help keep airfares low through the new additions of Airbus’ A330 neo wide-body and A321 Xtra Long Range aircraft.

    Benyamin Ismail, AirAsia X’s chief executive officer, said that the two aircraft will provide the carrier with the “lowest possible operating costs to expand its network and enable even more people to fly further for less”.

    This will allow AirAsia X to further expand into markets like Australia, and “explore new longer haul markets including Europe, which are currently under review,” he added.

    The two Kuala Lumpur-based airlines have 272 total aircraft today, flying to more than 150 destinations in 25 markets.

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