Parkson struggled to do business in Vietnam

As a unit under Parkson Holdings Berhard (PHB) – an investment company of Lion Group (Malaysia), Parkson Retail Asia (PRA) was listed on the Singapore stock exchange in November 2011, currently operating more than 60 centers.

In the newly released financial report, PRA said that gross sales in the quarter to the end of September 2014 increased by 1.7% to 280.7 million Singapore dollars.

However, the report commented that Parkson’s business results were still gloomy, despite sales in Myanmar increasing by 33.2% and operations in Indonesia improving due to increased consumer sentiment.

A Parkson shopping center in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia).

Specifically, the company’s net profit in the quarter was only 6.9 million SGD, down 33.1% over the same period last year, due to poor sales in Vietnam and Malaysia.

Parkson Retail Asia CEO Toh Peng Koon said the retail environment in the quarter was `very challenging`.

Regarding the Vietnamese market, the report commented: `The business environment in Vietnam is still very challenging as spending in the retail industry is weak, and competition is fierce as there are more and more new competitors in the market.`

Previously, in the report as of the end of June 2014, Parkson said that Vietnam’s SSS had grown negative 1% from 2013 and negative 4% in 2014, due to weak consumption in the retail sector, despite

In Parkson Holdings Berhard’s first quarter fiscal 2015 financial report, retail revenue in Vietnam and Myanmar reached 28 million ringgit, higher than the same period last year, but a loss of 3.1 million ringgit.

Meanwhile, in Malaysia, weak consumer sentiment due to rising living costs and tightening policies from the Central Bank since mid-year also caused the Parkson store chain here to have negative SSS growth of 4%.

However, commenting on this year’s prospects, Mr. Toh Peng Koon still expressed optimism: `Even though macro factors have many mixed signs, we will still focus on improving fundamental factors. With