Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc. (RRHI), a member of the Gokongwei Group, aims to grow revenue by opening more stores, particularly expanding high-growth businesses like neighborhood supermarkets, pet retail, and hard-discount stores.
During the Philippine Stock Exchange's Strengthening Access and Reach (STAR) Investor Day, RRHI Vice President for Corporate Planning Gina R. Dipaling said they also intend to boost profitability by increasing the share of higher-margin private label products.
“In the next three to five years, we plan to accelerate our store openings, to increase the top line. On margins, it will be largely driven by changes in category mix, increasing the share of private label products and imported products in our stores, and also leveraging our size so when we negotiate with vendors to get more margins from them on the cost side," she said.
Dipaling added that they also intend to negotiate rent concessions for their underperforming stores to help them recover.
RRHI has a minority stake in O!Save Trading Philippines Corporation, which is scaling up its presence in the hard-discount grocery retail segment, currently focusing on areas north of Metro Manila.
According to Dipaling, O!Save will expand to 400 stores by the end of 2024 and plans to open 200 to 300 new stores next year.
“We are also accelerating the expansion of our neighborhood supermarket called Robinson's Easymart. They are, you know, they we carry 3,000 to 6,500 SKUs (stock keeping units) in Robinsons Easymart, so you can actually fulfill your full shopping list versus that on the discounters, where they only offer 500 to 600 SKUs,” she noted.
"Our pet retail business is one of the fast growing businesses that we are operating. Right now, we've seen strong sales traction," Dipaling said.
"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.