Touting its customer-oriented services, a new shopping mall set for a grand opening tomorrow could reinvigorate the Taipei Railway Station neighborhood.
The 20,000 ping (66,100m²), seven-story Qsquare (京站時尚廣場) expects to see NT$5 billion (US$151 million) in receipts in its first year of operation, said Christina Ko (柯愫吟), general manager of Jing-Jan Retail Business Co (京站實業), which runs Qsquare.
It is expected to see NT$500 million in sales in the first two weeks alone, she said.
The new mall is part of a property that also includes luxury housing, a gym, a cinema complex and a five-star hotel poised to open next spring.
NEW IN THE AREA
Qsquare is expected to revive the shopping landscape of the Taipei Railway Station area, where Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store (新光三越) is the only major mall.
With an innovation budget of NT$1 billion, Qsquare is expected to break even in three years — a common time frame for mall operators, said Sunny Liu (劉懿慧), Jing-Jan’s strategy and planning director.
Qsquare is setting its eyes on the 500,000 daily commuters transiting at Taipei Railway Station, who take the MRT, railways and buses, she told reporters during a pre-opening media tour yesterday.
As many as 100,000 commuters take express buses in and out of the Taipei Bus Station (台北轉運站) alone, she said, giving Qsquare an edge as it is located adjacent to the station.
The mall targets shoppers between 18 and 45 years of age and seeks to offer unique services that meet customer needs. For example, it boasts freezer lockers outside of the Jason’s supermarket in the basement so that shoppers can drop off their purchases of frozen food and go for a movie before going home.
Qsquare is also hoping to win women over with a large lingerie section complete with heated floors in the changing rooms to keep shoppers warm while they try on garments.
There are also carts for lingerie shoppers and a larger fitting room to allow groups of shoppers to stay together while they try on garments.
SPORTS
The mall also hopes to attract sports and health enthusiasts with everything from tanning rooms and a skateboard playground to a bicycle parking lot.
Cyclists can hang their vehicles on the wall on the third floor or put foldable bikes into tailored lockers.
A shower room is also available for cyclists.
“Qsquare differentiates itself from rivals by targeting mainly the younger crowds,” said Chiou Jyh-shen (邱志聖), an international business professor at National Chengchi University.
Its strategic location in the bustling Taipei Railway Station neighborhood will help business, he said.
Government figures show that revenues for shopping malls and department stores in Taiwan in the first 10 months of the year inched up nearly 1 percent from last year to NT$182 billion. Sales in October alone grew 10.8 percent year-on-year to NT$27 billion thanks to anniversary promotions.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) would not produce its most advanced technologies in the US next year, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. Kuo made the comment during an appearance at the legislature, hours after the chipmaker announced that it would invest an additional US$100 billion to expand its manufacturing operations in the US. Asked by Taiwan People’s Party Legislator-at-large Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) if TSMC would allow its most advanced technologies, the yet-to-be-released 2-nanometer and 1.6-nanometer processes, to go to the US in the near term, Kuo denied it. TSMC recently opened its first US factory, which produces 4-nanometer
GREAT SUCCESS: Republican Senator Todd Young expressed surprise at Trump’s comments and said he expects the administration to keep the program running US lawmakers who helped secure billions of dollars in subsidies for domestic semiconductor manufacturing rejected US President Donald Trump’s call to revoke the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, signaling that any repeal effort in the US Congress would fall short. US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who negotiated the law, on Wednesday said that Trump’s demand would fail, while a top Republican proponent, US Senator Todd Young, expressed surprise at the president’s comments and said he expects the administration to keep the program running. The CHIPS Act is “essential for America leading the world in tech, leading the world in AI [artificial
REACTIONS: While most analysts were positive about TSMC’s investment, one said the US expansion could disrupt the company’s supply-demand balance Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) new US$100 billion investment in the US would exert a positive effect on the chipmaker’s revenue in the medium term on the back of booming artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from US chip designers, an International Data Corp (IDC) analyst said yesterday. “This is good for TSMC in terms of business expansion, as its major clients for advanced chips are US chip designers,” IDC senior semiconductor research manager Galen Zeng (曾冠瑋) said by telephone yesterday. “Besides, those US companies all consider supply chain resilience a business imperative,” Zeng said. That meant local supply would
BIG INVESTMENT: Hon Hai is building the world’s largest assembly plant for servers based on Nvidia Corp’s state-of-the-art AI chips, Jalisco Governor Pablo Lemus said The construction of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co’s (鴻海精密) massive artificial intelligence (AI) server plant near Guadalajara, Mexico, would be completed in a year despite the threat of new tariffs from US President Donald Trump, Jalisco Governor Pablo Lemus said. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), is investing about US$900 million in what would become the world’s largest assembly plant for servers based on Nvidia Corp’s state-of-the-art GB200 AI chips, Lemus said. The project consists of two phases: the expansion of an existing Hon Hai facility in the municipality of El Salto, and the construction of a
RSS