SM Group to expand supermarket chain

MANILA, Philippines - The food retail unit of the SM Group announced they will be investing P1 billion to P2 billion for the construction of 20 new stores in Metro Manila and surrounding provinces this year.

Robert Kwee, executive vice president of the retail group, said that they would like to put up more stores this year in order to bring Save More, SM Hypermarkets and Supermarkets closer to the public. However, he said that they will not open new Makro outlets this year. “We want to be close to the customers,” Kwee said.

Likewise, Kwee said that they will be converting some Makro stores into Save More outlets. He said that they will be converting the Makro outlets that have not been performing well. He declined to name which outlets will be converted.

“We want to turn it around and re engineer them (Makro outlets to be converted),’ he explained.

Meanwhile, Watson’s and SM Beauty said that they expect to grow by eight percent this year after posting a seven percent growth in 2009. “We are growing faster than the industry,” Robert U. Sun, chief Operating Officer of Watsons Your Personal Store, Phils said.

 Sun said that 65 percent of the revenue of SM beauty and Watson’s come from beauty while the remaining 35 percent is from health. However, he said that the health sector is growing faster than beauty.

He estimated that six percent of the revenues of SM comes from beauty. Sun said that even during the financial crisis, people were still buying beauty products. He explained that people only downgraded or started buying cheaper brands or shifted to smaller packages but the demand remained.

By yearend, Sun said that they will be operating 245 outlets. He also said that they will be renovating six to ten outlets this year which would cost P80 million.

Yesterday, SM launched the Beauty Experts Behind the Scene at the SM Makati Department Store. The event was the official launch of Beauty by SM’s flagship store.

 “The launch of Beauty by SM’s flagship store at SM Makati signals a new era,” said Robert Sun. “We now take Beauty to the next level. We have lined up many more stores to be renovated to ensure that we are able to provide our customers a unique shopping experience. I am proud to say that we are well on our way to making our vision to be the preferred beauty destination a reality.”