Cheng Uei to Open 100 Apple Retail Stores in Asia This Year

Taipei, July 26, 2011 (CENS)--The Taiwan-based Cheng Uei Precision Industry Co., Ltd., a connector supplier for Apple Inc., aims to expand the number of its Apple retail chain stores in Asia to 100 by the end of this year, securing a strong drive for its sales.

Cheng Uei's Apple retail chain store, Studio A, is an official reseller for Apple's products, which now owns 30 outlets in Taiwan, two in Hong Kong, and one in Nanking and Hefei City, China, each. In addition, after acquiring a local distributor in Korea, the company has also set up more than 20 Apple stores there.

Noteworthy is that Cheng Uei has planned to cooperate with Japanese and American distributors, in a bid to step up business deployments in the segment.

The return of the business is increasingly lucrative, which has contributed nearly NT$5 billion to Cheng Uei's combined revenue over the past six months of this year, higher than the full-year total of NT$3.2 billion scored in 2010. Cheng Uei projects sales revenue by the Apple retail chain store to total NT$7 billion throughout this year.

However, institutional investors opine that the business can contribute even more than expected, due partly to Cheng Uei's new store opening plan and partly to the launch of Apple's new iPhone and iPad in September. Hopefully, they added, sales revenue of the Apple store will break the NT$10 billion mark in the year.

Tapping Apple's supply chain, Cheng Uei finished the first half of the year with combined revenue of NT$34.39 billion, and is expected to achieve full-year EPS (earnings per share) of between NT$5.5 and NT$6.