ITOCHU Forms Strategic Capital Alliance with Major Online Shopping Company PCHOMESTORE

November 22, 2010

ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Masahiro Okafuji, President & CEO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced that it has invested in PCHOMESTORE Inc. (headquartered in Taipei; Jan Hung-tze, Chairman; hereinafter “PCHOMESTORE”), a major online shopping company in Taiwan. With the investment, PChome Store will become an international strategic partner of ITOCHU.

PCHOMESTORE launched an online shopping mall platform business in October 2005, as a department of PChome Online Inc. (headquartered in Taipei; Chairperson: Jan Hung-tze, Chairman), a leading Internet portal in Taiwan, and was spun off as a separate company in April 2010. PCHOMESTORE is Taiwan’s largest online shopping platform business, having more than 8,700 stores and dealing in over 3 million items as of October 2010. Data of the Market Intelligence Center (MIC) of Taiwan show that Taiwan’s online shopping market was worth 311.6 billion New Taiwan dollars (840.0 billion yen) in 2009 and is expected to grow 30% annually from 2010. PCHOMESTORE is also expected to enjoy rapid growth.

Through the strategic capital alliance, ITOCHU will encourage the growth of PCHOMESTORE and will support the company’s overseas strategy, using ITOCHU’s sourcing capability, expertise in the online business, and retail network in China. ITOCHU positions household consumption as one of its priority fields and has established a value chain connecting consumer markets in Asia. With PCHOMESTORE as a new platform, ITOCHU will expand its consumer business in Asia.

Profile of PChome Store

Corporate name PCHOMESTORE Inc.
Representative Jan Hung-tze
Address 14F, 105, Sec 2, Tun-Hwa S.Rd. Taipei, Taiwan
Established April 30, 2010
Paid-in capital NT$129,400,000 (\350 million)
Employees 85
URL http://store.pchome.com.tw/[Open in a new window]

Profile of PCHOMESTORE Website

Major items Home appliances, household goods, and foods
Number of stores 8,700
Number of items 3 million
Address http://store.pchome.com.tw/[Open in a new window]
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