7-Eleven to raise its store count by 25%

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine Seven Corp., the exclusive local licensee of convenience store chain 7-Eleven, is set to stay ahead of competition as it plans to finish the year with 25 percent more stores than last year.

In regulatory filing, Philseven said it expects to end 2014 with 1,250 stores, about a quarter more than the 1,009 stores in end-2013.

To reach that level, the company has to open around 80 new stores in the remaining months of the year. As of end-September, there are 1,170 7-Eleven stores nationwide, leading the highly-competitive convenience store market with a share of at least 60 percent.

For this year, Philseven has more than doubled its capital expenditures to P2 billion. In January, the company opened its 1,000th convenience store located at the IT Building of the Greenfield District in Mandaluyong City.

Philseven said its store count has been increasing at an average of 20 to 25 percent annually over the past few years, mainly because of its strong franchising network.

The company said close to 70 percent of its current outlets are franchised.

Philseven secured the right to operate 7-Eleven stores in the Philippines from Texas-based 7-Eleven Inc. in 1982. It opened its first store at the corner of EDSA and Kamias in Quezon City.

Philseven is 56.59-percent owned by President Chain Store (Labuan) Holdings Ltd., a Malaysia-based investment holding firm.

In the first half of the year, same-store sales of the convenience store chain climbed 14.5 percent to P9.77 billion from P8.54 billion a year ago while revenue from merchandise sales grew 14.4 percent to P7.98 billion from P6.98 billion.