Click to read the original article for details. To drive growth for its second 50 years, Uni-President will continue to deepen product and service diversification while actively expanding overseas, with Asia as the primary focus. On June 18, Uni-President held its annual shareholders' meeting. Lo Chih-hsien, who has been at the helm for six years, delivered a performance that saw the stock price rise from below NT$50 to over NT$80. At the meeting, he also shared his business philosophy, stating that the future will shift from retail to services, and the market will expand to Asia! According to financial reports, Uni-President's 2018 annual revenue reached NT$431.445 billion, up 7.9% year-on-year, with a gross margin of 33.67%, an increase of 0.47 percentage points year-on-year. Net profit after tax was NT$17.442 billion, down 56.22% year-on-year, with earnings per share of NT$3.07. On Development: Mergers and Acquisitions Will Continue, Building an Asian Corridor Uni-President (1216) Chairman Lo Chih-hsien stated that Asia's population is as high as 2.2 billion. Uni-President will build a corridor stretching from Japan and South Korea in the north to Indonesia in the south, focusing efforts wherever there is population. He described it as "piecing together a landscape painting, with no end in sight." Lo Chih-hsien said, "Mergers and acquisitions will continue in the future, and the key premise for selecting targets is that they must benefit the brand." The targets include products related to food, drink, entertainment, and beauty. He noted that the group's M&A activities have been fortunate to avoid losses. The factors considered for M&A include "buying products, channels, talent, and markets," with the most important being timing. If any one factor is met, it can be considered. Regarding the contraction of Taiwan's revenue to NT$38.9 billion last year, Lo Chih-hsien said it was mainly due to cutting low-margin bulk commodity businesses. He described "revenue like a person's weight; weight and physical strength are two different things." The company's development process is like the human body, which may have some excess fat. Fat has weight but does not necessarily earn you points. After trimming it, short-term revenue shrinks, but it helps overall profits. On Baking: A Very Tough Industry, Will Continue to Invest Western dietary habits are sweeping Asia. Lo Chih-hsien said, "Baking is a very tough industry. Looking at future trends, the number of people engaged in baking will decrease, but demand will increase, leading to many derivative problems and needs," including frozen dough, finished and semi-finished products. "In the future, Uni-President will continue to invest in the baking business." He pointed out that if Uni-President's bread is viewed from an ecological supply chain perspective, manufacturing is the simplest part; the biggest challenge is distribution. Balancing production and sales, and maintaining rhythm, is very difficult. On 7-ELEVEN: Not Doing Retail, But Building a Service Platform Regarding the expansion of President Chain Store (7-ELEVEN), Lo Chih-hsien said, "We cannot open stores just for the sake of opening stores, unless the store offers different services or products." The invested 7-ELEVEN has annual revenue of about NT$160 billion, but the amount of payments collected on behalf of credit cards, utilities, etc., is several times that, larger than a financial holding company. He revealed that "President Chain Store will not do retail in the future, but will become a service platform, with selling goods being just one function." "In the future, e-commerce will become a natural killer of physical channels. 7-ELEVEN will replace many functions of consumers' home kitchens, becoming a social restaurant. Consumers can also get satisfactory services and entertainment at convenience stores, which will no longer be just convenience stores." Chairman Lo Chih-hsien: "We are now transforming. We no longer want to do retail; we want to be a service platform. Convenience stores will replace many functions of the home kitchen, and convenience stores will become social restaurants." Source: China Times Electronic News / EBC Financial News, etc.