Jollibee eyes 500 new stores this year

Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) is planning to build at least 500 new stores worldwide this year as part of its global expansion initiative.

Around 250 to 300 new stores will be in the Philippines, the rest outside the country, said JFC chief finance officer Ysmael Baysa.

The company will focus on expanding the Jollibee and Highlands Coffee brands in Vietnam as it banks on the neighboring country’s growing economy and young demographics.

“Our second biggest market is China and then United States, but Vietnam is the fastest growing and it’s understandable because Vietnam is also one of the fastest-growing economies in the world,” Baysa told reporters on the sidelines of the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting in Quezon City on Friday.

“It’s growing more than 6 percent and it has also a young population and also the size of the consumer sector especially in the fastfood is still very strong,” he said.

JFC also intends to establish its presence in new markets such as the United Kingdom, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

Baysa said the company is opening its first Jollibee store in London. No official opening date has yet been set.

“For Malaysia, we are doing first on the eastern—Kota Kinabalu. There are a lot of Filipinos—so still first focus on the Filipinos and then start spreading. And then in Indonesia, we believe the chicken market is so huge yet.”

The initial target will be the Filipinos in Indonesia, Baysa noted.

JFC chairman Tony Tan Caktiong said during the stockholders’ meeting that it is only a matter of time before the goal of growing the overseas business to 50 percent of the total will be realized.

By the end of this year, JFC is expecting to book a total store network of 4,200 across its brands.

On the sidelines of the stockholders’ meeting, Tan Caktiong said that JFC plans to tap into consumers of  Maxican food in the US market. He did not elaborate.

“We are still exploring. It can be acquisition of a joint venture company, it can be a joint venture. But what we are looking at is the potential … There are discussions, but at this point we cannot yet reveal because it’s not yet that final,” JFC chief executive officer Ernesto Tan Mantiong said.

In May, the company said it would be investing 45 million Singapore dollars in Titan Dining Partners Ltd., a private equity which will acquire the Tim Ho Wan brand in the Asia Pacific.

JFC also plans to bring the Pho24 brand in the Philippines this year, with the first store slated to open in July in Pasay City.

The company increased its stake to 85 percent in US burger chain Smashburger.

“We will be including Smashburger in JFC’s financial consolidation, henceforth, this will increase the foreign business’ contribution to global system wide sales to almost 30 percent from 22 percent,” Tan Mantiong said. —VDS, GMA News