Hong Kong retail giant AS Watson to spend HK$1 billion on digital transformation in the next decade
- The iconic health and beauty chain aims to innovate by partnering with start-ups in countries like Canada, the US and Australia, rather than through acquisitions
AS Watson Group, the flagship retail unit of Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison, may fork out HK$1 billion (US$128 million) on digital innovation in the next decade, according to Dominic Lai, group managing director.
The group’s iconic Watsons health and beauty chain of stores is one of Hong Kong’s most instantly recognisable retail brands, with a proud history going back about 175 years. But in the era of e-commerce and digitalisation the company has worked hard to stay ahead, investing in technologies such as self-checkout machines, unstaffed stores and facial recognition for payments.
By next year it will have spent about HK$1 billion (US$128 million) on technology since 2012, said Lai.
“We will definitely invest if there is any new development in tech, be it e-commerce or digitalisation,” ha said after the opening AS Watson’s 15,000th store, in Kuala Lumpur, last week. “We started to notice the trend in 2011. If we had left it until now to start, it would have been too late.”
Among future innovations, it plans to roll out machines for skin analysis, digital panels to let customers choose products and technologies for customising product positioning in different stores.