November 23, 2024 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Gokongwei-owned Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc. (RRHI) is targeting to ramp up its store openings to further boost the company’s revenue growth in the next few years.
“There’s still room to increase the margins and that will come from increasing the share of our private label products to total sales. But the key there is really increasing the top line,” RRHI vice president for corporate planning Gina Dipaling said.
“So I think in the next three to five years, we plan to accelerate our store openings to increase the top line,” she said.
As one of the country’s largest multi-format retailers, RRHI currently has an expansive network of food stores, drugstores, department stores, do-it-yourself stores and specialty stores.
The company operated a total of 2,413 stores consisting of 758 food stores, 1,101 drugstores, 50 department stores, 225 do-it-yourself stores and 279 specialty stores as of end-September. It also has 2,163 franchised stores of TGP.
Dipaling said RRHI would be accelerating the expansion of its neighborhood supermarket called Robinsons Easymart.
“We carry like 3,000 to 6,500 SKUs (stock keeping units) in Robinsons Easymart, so you can actually fulfill your full shopping list versus that of the hard discounters, where they only offer like 500 to 600 SKUs,” she said.
RRHI also has presence in the hard discount store segment through a minority stake in O!Save.
“O!Save is actually accelerating its expansion. By end of this year there will be like 400 O!Save stores in Luzon. There’s a plan to open another 200 to 300 next year. So they really need to scale up as well,” Dipaling said.
Dipaling said that RRHI’s pet retail business, meanwhile, has seen strong sales traction and is one of the fast-growing business being operated by the group at present.
“We actually plan to improve further our pet retail business by improving the merchandise that we’re offering. Offering grooming services which we are for some of the stores and we are also looking at opening more new stores for 2025,” she said.
In terms of expanding its portfolio and acquiring more brands, Dipaling said that RRHI remains open as long as it adds the value to the company.
“If we plan to enter into new businesses, it will be maybe a subsegment of an existing segment already. Like for example, we have Southstar and then we purchased TGP, which is subsegmented. This is another drug store business, but more of a franchise business. So that’s what we plan to do,” Dipaling said.
“We almost have most of the formats in retail. We are into food, we are into drug store, we’re into department store, DIY, toys, mass merchandise, we have appliances and we’re (also) into sports. We have a lot already in our portfolio. So if ever it will be a subsegment of the existing segment,” she said.
RRHI delivered strong earnings growth in the nine-month period ending September, with net sales reaching P142.4 billion on the back of sustained contributions from its core food and drugstore segments.
Be the first to comment