{"id":125641,"date":"2017-10-22T06:11:58","date_gmt":"2017-10-22T10:11:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=125641"},"modified":"2017-10-22T06:11:58","modified_gmt":"2017-10-22T10:11:58","slug":"japanese-conglomerate-optimistic-on-ph-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/10\/22\/japanese-conglomerate-optimistic-on-ph-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese conglomerate optimistic on PH market"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lixil<\/a>
Lixil Corp., which is operating in over 150 countries, owns various famous brands Lixil, Grohe, American Standard and Inax. (Photo <\/a>by squeezyboy, Flickr<\/a>\/CC BY 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 The country head of a Japanese conglomerate and global leader in housing and building materials is optimistic on the Philippines and the market, supported by a robust growth in the construction sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very exciting, the Philippine market.\u00a0 Actually, it\u2019s been growing very fast the past few years\u2026 So like last year, we have grown more than 30 percent as a company (here),\u201d said Alen Alban, country manager of bathroom firm Lixil Water Technology, a unit of Lixil Corp.<\/p>\n

Lixil Corp., which is operating in over 150 countries, owns various famous brands Lixil, Grohe, American Standard and Inax.<\/p>\n

\u201cA couple of years, we were thinking when will be the decline for the construction industry. But surprisingly, we haven\u2019t felt it at all,\u201d he said in an interview on the sidelines of the launch of Grohe electronics toilet and luxury shower system over the weekend.<\/p>\n

Listed Wilcon Depot Inc., the country\u2019s leading home improvement and construction supply retailer, is the exclusive distributor of Grohe in the Philippines.\u00a0 Grohe, headquartered in Germany, is Europe\u2019s largest bathroom fixtures firm.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Philippines, we rapidly grow over the years. Since last year, we have grown eight times already. So that\u2019s how fast we grew the business with Wilcon, so they are really our perfect partners for retailing here in the Philippines,\u201d added Alban.<\/p>\n

He considered the Philippines a \u201cfaster-growing country\u201d, with China and India its biggest country markets.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Wilcon Depot has continued to embark on massive store expansion to grow its earnings.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor this year, we are going to open (branches) in Iloilo, Cabanatuan and Tacloban plus Zamboanga. We opened three already in Butuan, Bacolod and Cagayan de Oro. Next year, (we will open) another six stores,\u201d said Rosemarie Bosch-Ong, Senior Executive Vice President-Chief Operating Officer at Wilcon Builders.<\/p>\n

Bosch-Ong said the company spends about PHP150 million per store, excluding PHP30 million for inventory.<\/p>\n

\u201cAside from store expansion, we\u2019re expanding our categories as well and the product line and then continuous improvement in our service system,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Bosch-Ong identified growth potential categories as building materials and electrical products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 The country head of a Japanese conglomerate and global leader in housing and building materials is optimistic on the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":125642,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[28992,28991],"class_list":["post-125641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-japanese-conglomerate-and-global-leader","tag-japanese-conglomerate-optimistic-on-ph-market","mauthors-leslie-gatpolintan","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}