Magazines Archives - 2010 Dec

Asia-Pacific’s outstanding retailers celebrated at Retail Asia’s 7th award & gala event
Story 4 - Special Report

MORE than 120 industry partners and leading retailers from across 14 economies across the region gathered at The Regent Beijing Hotel ballroom on 9 November 2010, to celebrate the momentous occasion of the seventh annual Retail Asia-Pacific Top 500 Award Ceremony and Gala Dinner, which returned to Beijing, China, for the second time since its inauguration.

Organised by Retail Asia Publishing Pte Ltd, the Retail Asia-Pacific Top 500 ranking is a revolutionary collaboration with official market information provider Euromonitor International, along with principal programme partner, KPMG, and principal sponsors Visa International and ADT Security.

In total, 42 retailers were acknowledged as the top three in each of their economies — Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

The 2010 Top 500 ranking, which graded retailers by their total sales turnover for 2009, also identified the top 10 retailers in each country, followed by the top 10 retailers by fascia. From the top three winners, a panel of esteemed judges then moved on to select the “Best of the Best” retailers from across the 14 economies, with the highest honour awarded to Hall of Fame inductees.

This year, the ranking incorporated a new criteria to identify the region’s fastest-growing retailer, based on the highest sales productivity.

While the culmination of these efforts proved heartening as seen by the turnout at the gala event, Retail Asia Publishing’s executive chairman, Steven Goh, revealed that there was some anxiety at the onset of the 2010 ranking. He explained: “The 2010 Top 500 ranking was particularly worrisome for us, for the simple reason that we were essentially polling the sales turnover of retailers in the fiscal year 2009. And all of us knew that 2009 was the year that has been dubbed as the deepest and gravest recession since the 1930s depression … But as it turned out, our reservations and concerns were happily misplaced.”

Goh disclosed that the total volume of sales of the top 500 Asia-Pacific retailers grew by 3%, while the sales volumes of the top 50 increased by 5%; even the top 25 experienced a 5.8% growth. “While these are small numbers, they are very impressive in very tumultuous times and conditions. It testifies not only to the spirit of economic recovery sprouting much sooner than expected, but also to the fact that Asia was actually leading the global turnaround,” he pointed out.

The companies had successfully manoeuvred their way through the economic maelstrom, Goh established, “so tonight, what we want to do is to truly celebrate not only the achievements of the top 500 retailers across 14 economies Fame. And for the first time, in the sevenyear history of the Top 500 ranking, we have added a new category — the ‘Fastest Growth Retailer’ awards,” he said, adding that the new criterion “transcends size and scale of operation”, which lends an opportunity to SME retailers.

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