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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.

  • Pokemon GO Fest coming to USA this June

    Pokemon GO Fest coming to USA this June

    The folks at Niantic have gone a long way since their first Pokemon Fest, which was a total fiasco. After a more than decent 2018, the company is back with another series of Pokemon GO events that have already started earlier this year in South America.

    Today, Niantic announced three new Pokemon GO events are coming to three cities around the world: Chicago, Dortmund, and another city in Asia that will be confirmed later on. If you plan to attend the Pokemon GO Fest in the United States, you’ll have to plan your visit to Chicago between June 13-16

    In the following weeks, Niantic will offer details on how to purchase tickets to this summer’s biggest Pokemon GO events, so stay tuned for more info on the matter. Also, the company revealed that a number of Safari Zone events will be coming in the second half of 2019.
    More importantly, Pokemon fans who can’t attend these events for obvious reasons will have other ways to participate in Pokemon Go Fest no matter where they are around the world, so don’t fret if you can’t make it in person.

    Finally, it appears that Niantic has important things to announce regarding the upcoming worldwide Community Day events, so mark your calendars for the following dates: May 19, June 8, July 21, and August 3.

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  • AirAsia, Vistara cash in on crisis-hit Jet Airways slots

    AirAsia, Vistara cash in on crisis-hit Jet Airways slots

    Tata-group owned airlines AirAsia India and Vistara have announced 11 new flights from Mumbai after the airport operator released unused slots belonging to Jet Airways. The slots have been released to the airlines on a temporary basis.

    Private airport operators in Mumbai and Delhi and the Airports Authority of India have held several rounds of discussions with other airlines to fill up the capacity shortage caused due to grounding of Jet Airways fleet. While reduction of flights led to a hike in fares, it affected airports too. Fewer flights means lower revenue by way of landing fees and less passenger footfalls

    Over 70 per cent of the airline’s fleet has been grounded, leading to massive cancellations. Jet has been a dominant carrier in Mumbai and its daily departures are down to 24 from the earlier 140. Delhi airport, too, is finalising the issue of slots belonging to Jet.

    Other private airlines also have been offered slots by Mumbai airport but are yet to announce new flights. Schedule changes depend upon aircraft utilisation and availability of pilots among other things. A source said airlines were advised to operate flights on routes flown by Jet prior to its crisis with a view to maintain capacity on routes.

    On Thursday, Vistara announced launch of five flights between Mumbai and Bengaluru and one new flight from Mumbai to Hyderabad and Kolkata. These would operate from April 16 to July 15. Currently, Vistara flies to Delhi and Amirtsar from Mumbai and its market growth has been stunted due to non-availability of slots.

    Vistara will be reducing frequencies on other routes to operate these additional services from Mumbai.

    AirAsia India announced three additional flights to Bengaluru and a new flight to Kochi from Mumbai, beginning April 15. The airline did not mention until which date these flights would remain in operations.

    “There is precedence for grant of slots on a temporary basis. During SpiceJet crisis, its unused slots were temporarily given to other airlines and IndiGo was the main beneficiary that time,” said aviation expert Ameya Joshi.

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  • Google Assistant finally gets the celebrity voice

    Google Assistant finally gets the celebrity voice

    Back at Google I/O in May of 2018, Google promised users a special treat with Google Assistant — the addition of John Legend’s voice as an option for Google Home products and the Assistant on your phone. We’re now just about one month away from Google I/O 2019 and that promise has finally become a reality.

    All you have to do to get John Legend’s voice is to ask your Assistant to “talk like John Legend.” After that, you’ll have John Legend’s voice for a limited selection of things like giving weather updates, answering questions, and telling jokes, while “the regular Assistant” does everything else. We tested it out for a couple minutes and the general voice does sound like John Legend, even if it is a bit robotic, and there are fun Easter eggs to find, like when you ask “Do you like Chrissy Teigen?” or “What’s your middle name?” or “What’s your favorite song?” or “Serenade me.” In generally, questions about music will get something good from the voice.

    The one thing to remember is that Google has said this special voice will only be available for a limited time, although there’s no indication what that actually means. However, it seems like John Legend won’t be the only celebrity voice for the Google Assistant because this is Google’s way of showing off its WaveNet voice synthesis engine. The idea is that with a certain amount of data, it can impersonate anyone, so maybe at next month’s Google I/O we’ll hear about new voices in the works.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHghcYqeto&feature=youtu.be

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  • Vietnam Airlines, Jetstar to sell million tickets during month-end holidays

    Vietnam Airlines, Jetstar to sell million tickets during month-end holidays

    Vietnam Airlines and Jetstar Pacific will sell nearly one million seats on 4,700 domestic and international flights during the Reunification Day (April 30) and Labour Day (May 1) holidays from April 26 to May 5.

    Vietnam Airlines will sell nearly 800,000 of them, 78,000 more than last year.

    The State-owned carrier will focus on services from Hà Nội, HCM City, Đà Nẵng, Phú Quốc, and Nha Trang domestically and the Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and Cambodia sectors.

    It owns a 70 per cent stake in Jetstar.

    The two airlines have urged passengers to plan their travel early, use online check-in services and kiosks at airports to save time.

    They should buy their tickets at www.vietnamairlines.com and www.jetstar.com/vn or from their offices and official agents, and request invoices to ensure they are not deceived by fake tickets or high fares.

     

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  • Counterfeit goods seized in Stanley retail raids

    Counterfeit goods seized in Stanley retail raids

    Hong Kong Customs seized about 1300 fake branded items with a street value estimated at $600,000 during Stanley retail raids yesterday.

    The raid followed an earlier patrol where officers found suspected counterfeit goods were being sold at retail shops in the seaside suburb.

    The goods seized included handbags, leather products and clothing.

    A Customs spokesperson said that with the assistance of trademark owner, Customs officers took enforcement action, raiding two retail shops and one storage facility in the district.

    One man and two women were arrested – a shop owner and two salespersons, all aged between 34 and 47.

    The investigation is ongoing.

    Customs has previously said it will continue to step up inspection and enforcement to combat the sale of counterfeit goods and the number of raids in the territory has increased this year.

    “Customs reminds traders to be cautious and prudent in merchandising since the sale of counterfeit goods is a serious crime and offenders are liable to criminal liability,” said the spokesperson.

    Under the Trade Descriptions Ordinance, any person who sells or possesses for sale any goods with a forged trademark commits an offence. The maximum penalty upon conviction is a fine of $500,000 and imprisonment for five years.

  • Chairwoman of the Vietnamese National Assembly joins Vietjet at the ceremony in Toulouse

    Chairwoman of the Vietnamese National Assembly joins Vietjet at the ceremony in Toulouse

    Vietnamese National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and her fellow dignitaries from the National Assembly attended the delivery ceremony for Vietjet’s brand new A321neo, registered as VN-A600 at Airbus’s factory in Toulouse (France) yesterday.

    This visit by the delegation of National Assembly of Vietnam to the aircraft manufacturing factory underscores the deep commitment of Vietnam’s national leaders to support the development of Vietnam’s aviation industry and other affairs related to technology transfer and strategic cooperation within the industry.

    During the visit, Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, asserted in her speech that Vietjet has been a pioneering airline which has positively contributed to the development of the national and regional aviation industry. She also noted that the Vietnamese aviation industry has been growing continuously while Vietjet has been among the fastest growing airlines in the Asia-Pacific region. As a result, Vietnam’s economy has benefited greatly from the contribution of tourism and investment segments.

    Kindly find enclosed the press release alongside the accompanying images for your perusal and use.

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  • Fabernovel supports the global digital transformation of Shiseido

    Fabernovel supports the global digital transformation of Shiseido

    Fabernovel supports the leading international cosmetic company Shiseido to achieve its digital transformation at a global level by 2020. Shiseido has just received the Valiente’s Transformation Award at SXSW in Austin, Texas, acknowledging its excellence in digital transformation empowered by the SHISEIDO+ Digital Academy program launched in 2016 in collaboration with Fabernovel.

    Creation of a worldwide digital platform

    With Fabernovel, Shiseido launched the SHISEIDO+ Digital Academy program, creating a new approach of learning, both online and offline, to enable digital education and transformation at a global level.

    Shiseido executives and employees have been immersed in the innovation landscape through this fully fledged online learning platform comprised of 24 customized curriculums targeting various job functions, with more than a dozen of collaborative events (live sessions, learning expeditions, summits) in the world’s most advanced ecosystems from the Americas to Asia in order to accelerate digital transformation, stay ahead of the latest trends in their local markets, and adjust their business strategies accordingly.

    This digital transformation was a cultural challenge, as the project has to adapt to the way Shiseido communicates to over 30 different nationalities within the company. The customized curriculums have been created to meet the needs of each job function, both in terms of the specific issues they want to address and their level of digital maturity. In addition, the program is delivered in English, Japanese and Chinese (Mandarin) to maximize its effectiveness for each region.

    Over 2,000 employees across the globe are benefiting from the SHISEIDO+ Digital Academy and the company is getting closer to the objective of making Shiseido the most digitally fit beauty company by 2020. Thus, the program will continue expanding through its ongoing partnership with Fabernovel.

    “It is probably Fabernovel’s most ‘global’ project to date, and it means we can approach the digital transformation of a large organization from all angles, including cultural ones.” explains Dominique Piotet, International Development Director at Fabernovel

    Project awarded at SXSW

    The Valiente Awards recognize marketers as Angelica Munson, Global President of Shiseido Digital Center of Excellence, who have disrupted the status quo and who embrace the role of the modern marketer. The advisory panel showcase marketing change agents who have shown courage, ingenuity and spirit in delivering remarkable results for their organizations.

    “When I joined Shiseido Group in 2016, I considered myself extremely lucky to be part of the company’s Digital Center of Excellence and now even more so to lead that function for the global organization. Shiseido is such an innovative company, not only in terms of its cutting-edge products and progressive marketing strategies, but in its approach to professional development, particularly its commitment to “future-proof” the careers of its employees. The SHISEIDO+Digital Academy, overseen by my colleague Rosina Cascos, Executive Director, Global Programs, Shiseido Digital Center of Excellence, and developed in close collaboration with our agency partners at Fabernovel, is a prime example of that commitment.” Angelica Munson, Global President of Shiseido Digital Center of Excellence

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  • Healthy Life to join Go Vita network Immediately

    Healthy Life to join Go Vita network Immediately

    Australian retailer Healthy Life will join the nation’s largest health food store group, Go Vita, in the hope of strengthening the retail health channel.

    GoVita has more than 135 independently-owned and operated health stores in its network. Going forward, Healthy Life’s 50-plus store network will be co-branded as GoVita & Healthy Life, and both brands will retain their current identity.

    “In the face of an increasingly competitive and challenging retail environment, we believe this move will strengthen the retail health channel for the future,” said Healthy Life general manager, Craig Johnston in a statement on Tuesday.

    Healthy Life Group also plans to boost growth by investing further in its private label range for export.

    “By joining forces with Go Vita and shoring up the retail health channel we can both benefit from the significant growth that has seen the complementary medicine sector grow by 70 per cent in the last five years alone to an estimated $4.9 billion and the organic food market, which has grown by 88 per cent to an estimated $2.4 billion in Australia,” Healthy Life chairman Rolf Krecklenberg said.

    Go Vita CEO Terry Hughes said the move is great for both parties and will give Australians easier access to premium health and wellness products and services.

    “They Healthy Life have joined as members of Go Vita, enabling Go Vita to have a larger footprint to better serve the health & wellness sector across Australia with an increased store base just short of 180 stores nationally,” Terry Hughes CEO Go Vita told.

    “Health food stores play a vital role in the growth of Australia’s health and wellness industry. They are the incubators and launch pads for new, innovative products onto the Australian market and are a critical part of our retail landscape; ensuring consumers have diversity of choice about what they buy, and where they shop.”

    Commenting on whether there would be store closures in areas where Healthy Life/Go Vita store locations overlap Hughes said, “this will be reviewed on a case by case situation”.

    “If the Healthy Life store is within 1 km of the existing Go Vita store we will look to relocate the Healthy Life store.”

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  • Vingroup buys Vietnam c-store chain Shop&Go

    Vingroup buys Vietnam c-store chain Shop&Go

    Vingroup has acquired 87 Vietnamese Shop&Go convenience stores for just US$1.

    Vingroup’s retail arm VinCommerce, which manages Vinmart supermarkets and Vinmart+ convenience stores, will upgrade infrastructure, staff and goods at the acquired stores by the end of next month.

    According to a VinCommerce statement, Shop&Go made the approach and offered to sell itself.

    “The competition is more intense than we imagined; that is why we’ve decided to leave,” a Shop&Go spokesperson said, admitting Vietnamese retail market still has potential for growth.

    “We have sold our stores to Vingroup so it can continue to develop them.”

    Opened in 2006, Shop&Go was one of the earliest convenience store chains in Vietnam.

    By 2016, it had aggregated losses of almost VND205 billion (US$8.81 million).

    VinCommerce runs 108 VinMart supermarkets and 1900 VinMart+ convenience stores.

    Last year, it acquired supermarket chain Fivimart with 23 outlets.

    In a report last year, Nielsen Vietnam observed a rise in visits by Vietnamese to convenience stores. The average shopper uses a convenience store 4.5 times per month – three times the frequency of 2010.

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  • Lion Air to reduce Ticket Prices From April

    Lion Air to reduce Ticket Prices From April

    Airlines under the Lion Air group, namely Lion Air, Wings Air and Batik Air, operate with reduced airfares on all routes starting Saturday.

    “The reduction in ticket prices is Lion Air group’s answer to challenges and opportunities in the travel business, and aims to accommodate demand for air travel while improving flight operations,” Lion Air spokesman Danang Mandala Prihantoro said in a release on Saturday.

    He went on to say that Lion Air was striving to provide convenience for passengers while prioritizing safety and comfort.

    Lion Air tickets with the new lower fares can be reserved through all travel agents and Lion Air’s website.

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  • Nam Air to lure millennials with boutique airline

    Nam Air to lure millennials with boutique airline

    Nam Air, a subsidiary of Sriwijaya Group, has announced a plan to apply the boutique airline concept, which mainly focuses on lifestyle branding.

    The carrier aims to make itself more appealing for customers of the millennial generation by delivering what it refers to as a “unique concept that is more masculine”.

    Nam Air director Asa Perkasa said passengers would experience the new concept even prior to their departure, and it would continue until their arrival at an airport. “There will be a number of changes, starting from our style to our products,” said Asa in an official statement. “But it will still have an Indonesian touch.”

    Asa described millennials as a promising target group, as they made up a large portion of the market and medium-service airlines were challenged to cater to their needs.

    Entering its fifth year of operation, Nam Air plans to change its internal operations as well. “We plan to apply the millennial lifestyle to our internal work pattern, from our outfits and offices to our business processes,” said Asa. “We’ll provide training for all of our employees to keep up with market trends.”

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  • AirAsia prepares to fly to Japan starting in July

    AirAsia prepares to fly to Japan starting in July

    Budget carrier AirAsia Philippines is launching its first flights to Japan on July 1 this year. The carrier, a unit of Malaysia’s AirAsia Berhad, said in a statement over the weekend that it would link its Manila hub to Osaka, paving the way for direct flights to Japan.

    “The launch of direct flights between the Philippines and Japan is a milestone occasion, and we’re excited to connect our capital, Manila, with Osaka,” said AirAsia Philippines President and CEO Dexter Comendador.

    “We are also excited to welcome guests from Osaka and its neighboring regions to the Philippines. This international route will contribute to the government’s target of 8.2 million visitors this year,” he added.

    Similar to the launch of other new routes, the budget airline said it would offer promotional fares at P1,990 for a one way ticket.

    For the whole of 2018, AirAsia Philippines carried 6.87 million passengers, a gain of 30 percent.

    Capacity for the year also rose 34 percent as it increased its fleet of Airbus A320s to 22 planes in 2018 versus 17 aircraft the previous year.

    AirAsia Philippines was established in 2012 with a fleet of two A320s operating out of Clark International Airport.

    Since then, it has opened new hubs, including Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport and Mactan Cebu International Airport.

    At present, it flies to 13 international destinations from Manila in the Philippines, including Kuala Lumpur, Kota Kinabalu, Bangkok, Bali, Seoul, Taipei, Kaohsiung, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Macau and Ho Chi Minh City.

     

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  • Drop in Hong Kong retail sales

    Drop in Hong Kong retail sales

    Hong Kong retail sales fell 1.6 per cent in the first two months of this year.

    February’s sales were always expected to be down on last year due to the timing of Lunar New Year. They fell 10.1 per cent, while the revised figure for January was an increase of 7 per cent.

    As always, the Census and Statistics Department (C&SD) warned not to read too much into either month’s performance alone, asserting the combined January-February figures for each year provide a more accurate assessment of the state of retail sales growth.

    A government spokesman said the weak performance of retail sales in recent months reflected that consumer sentiment remained cautious amid “various external uncertainties”.

    “The near-term outlook for retail sales should continue to be affected by moderating global economic growth and various external uncertainties, but the full-employment situation and the sustained growth in inbound tourism should provide some support.”

    After netting out the effect of price changes over the same period, Hong Kong retail sales for the first two months of the year decreased by 1.8 per cent year on year.

    Combining the two months, sales of jewellery, watches and clocks decreased by 2.8 per cent. Other categories to fall included apparel down 3.7 per cent; food, alcoholic drinks and tobacco down 1 per cent; electrical goods and other consumer durable goods down 18.3 per cent; Chinese drugs and herbs down 1.7 per cent; and optical shops, down 2 per cent.

    However sales of medicines and cosmetics increased by 2.3 per cent; department store sales rose 4.2 per cent; supermarket sales by 1.5 per cent; footwear and accessories by 1.3 per cent; furniture and fixtures by 3.4 per cent; and books, newspapers, stationery and gifts by 1.7 per cent.

    The C&SD estimated the value of retail sales decreased by 0.6 per cent during the three months to February compared with the preceding three months, while the volume declined by 1.2 per cent.

  • Gmail is getting scheduled send time and Smart Compose is now on more devices

    Gmail is getting scheduled send time and Smart Compose is now on more devices

    Amidst all the absurd products Google is “announcing” as part of its April Fools campaign, there is also legitimate news coming from the company. With a post on its blog, Google is making official its Smart Compose functionality available for all Android devices with Gmail (iOS support “coming soon”). The feature had already appeared with an update on some devices besides Pixel smartphones, but today marks its broader release.

    For those unfamiliar with Smart Compose, it helps you type in your emails faster by suggesting phrases with which you can autocomplete your sentences. Unsurprisingly, the feature is powered by Google’s AI and its suggestions are based not only on the context of the email but on your writing style as well. So if you’re commonly using certain phrases in your emails, it shouldn’t take long before Smart Compose starts offering them as soon as you type in the first word or two.

    Another, this time “brand new” feature coming to Gmail is scheduled email sending. Once it’s available to you, there will be an arrow next to the send button through which you can select “Schedule send” and choose a date and time when you want your email to be sent. We assume the implementation for the Gmail app will be similar.

    This is a very convenient feature that has many use cases: preparing emails for when you’re going to be out of the office, on a plane or on vacation. Of course, you’ll also have the option to cancel the email at any point before its departure date and time. Considering it’s not a very complex one, we’re surprised it took so long for Google to implement it.

    It matters not, however, as now your Gmail client is gaining new features to make your life easier. How long will it be before we can just say “OK, Google, reply to all my emails.” and not have to bother at all?

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  • Apple cuts the prices of its devices in China

    Apple cuts the prices of its devices in China

    Earlier this year, there were quite a few reasons why Apple decided to cut the wholesale price of the 2018 iPhone models in China. First, the strength of the U.S. Dollar against the Chinese Yuan forced Apple to price the ‘more affordable’ iPhone XR higher than the premium-priced Huawei Mate 20 Pro in China. When the dollar is stronger against the Yuan, it means that Apple gets fewer dollars back when it converts the Yuans it receives from sales of its products in China. At this point, Apple has a choice; it can keep pricing the same and suffer the consequences, or it can lower its prices in China and take a hit to its margins.

    In addition, a rise of Chinese nationalism hurt iPhone sales as consumers in the country protested the U.S.-China trade war and the U.S. government’s treatment of Huawei. There was the overall sluggishness in the smartphone market due to high prices, lack of innovation and high penetration rates for smartphones. Lower sales in China of iPhone models forced Apple to cut its revenue guidance for the fiscal first quarter, leading to a selloff in the company’s stock. At the time, Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “If you look at our results, our shortfall is over 100 percent from iPhone and it’s primarily in greater China.” As it turned out, Apple ended up shipping 20% fewer iPhone units to China during the three month period, and its overall revenue in the market declined by 28% or $5 billion.

    Caixin reports today that Apple has made another bold pricing move in China, this time slashing prices of certain devices in the company’s own online and physical stores by as much as 6%. The affected products include iPhones, iPads, AirPods and Macs. For example, in China’s version of the Apple Store, the 64GB iPhone XR is now priced at 6,199 Yuan (equivalent to $924 USD at current exchange rates), a 4.6% decline from the 6,499 Yuan that the phone was listed at just a few days ago. The price cut took 500 Yuan ($74.50 USD) off the prices of the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max.

    This is why Apple cut its prices in China today

    However, unlike the previous price cut in China, this time the reason has nothing to do with the supply-demand balance. Starting today, new regulations dropped the value-added tax (VAT) for manufacturers in China to 13% from 16%. This gives Apple some leeway to lower the pricing of Apple devices in the country. Still, consumers in China often find better pricing for the company’s products online. Prices for the iPhone XS Max and iPhone XS declined by as much as 2,000 Yuan ($298 USD) last month on these sites due to tepid sales of the phones. E-commerce firms in China such as Tmall and JD.com have now cut their prices on the 2018 iPhone models twice this year.

    It wasn’t until 2009 that a Chinese wireless provider offered the Apple iPhone to consumers. Before the iPhone 3GS became available from China Unicom, iPhone models could only be purchased from the black market.

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