RRHI to open more supermarkets, drug stores outside NCR

ROBINSONS Retail Holdings Inc. (RRHI), the listed retail unit of the Gokongwei Group, said it is keen on accelerating its expansion outside the National Capital Region (NCR).

The company said during its annual stockholders’ meeting that it will tap its supermarket and drugstore businesses for the expansion.

“With 30 percent of our stores located in Metro Manila, we want to accelerate our expansion outside the capital. In terms of formats, were looking to open more of our core supermarket and drugstore banners,” Robina Gokongwei-pe, the company’s president and CEO, said.

The company’s supermarket business consists of Robinsons Supermarket, Shopwise, The Marketplace, which it acquired from the Rustans group and Robinsons Easymart. It also owns Southstar Drug, TGP (The Generics Pharmacy) and Rose Pharmacy.

Amid stiff competition in the supermarket business, particularly from the emerging hard discount stores, Pe said RRHI intends to maintain market share by “offering a wide range of relevant products and providing an exceptional shopping experience be t offline or online.”

“Our margins should remain intact as we continuously enhance our product mix and gain more scale,” she said. “We have entered the hard discount category through a stake in O!save which is aggressively expanding.”

For its drugstore businesses, Pe said the company’s aspiration for the segment is to become more accessible to our customers.

“By doing so, we aim to boost our market share and brand value. We believe there is opportunity to increase market coverage for all our banners, as there are a lot of municipalities and barangays in the Philippines that still lack drugstores.

In terms of major acquisitions, the company said it is always on the lookout for value accretive. “Should there be an opportunity, we will be ready to capitalize.”