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Singapore store is Jollibee’s top outlet globally: company official
The first store of Jollibee Foods Corporation in Singapore may have met with controversy when it started serving customers over three months ago, but that didn’t stop it from becoming the Philippine fast food giant’s No. 1 outlet globally.
Before the formal ribbon-cutting ceremony for the store Wednesday, Dennis Flores, Jollibee’s vice-president for international operations, told Yahoo! Singapore that the bigger-than-average outlet at Lucky Plaza on Orchard Road has become the chain’s top performer in terms of sales out of its 884 stores across the globe.
In a short speech during the ceremony, Flores said that "sales performance exceeded expectations", and that in the first week alone an estimated 35,000 customers visited the Singapore store.
Gracing the occasion of the formal opening were Temasek Holdings CEO Ho Ching and former Singapore president S. R. Nathan, alongside Philippine Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima and Philippine Trade and Industry Secretary Gregory Domingo.
The appetite for Jollibee’s “chickenjoy” and “yum burger” staples has not been limited to Filipinos, as 40 per cent of the weekday lunch crowd is made up of Singaporeans, according to Flores, citing point-of-sales data.
Since its soft opening in March, the store has seen long queues of customers, although reports that the chain had an alleged hiring preference for Filipinos over Singaporeans initially spurred some locals to create a Facebook page calling for a boycott of the outlet.
The company has since clarified that nearly 80 per cent of its staff are permanent residents and Singapore citizens.
Meanwhile, encouraged by the reception to its first store, Jollibee is looking to open two more stores in Singapore, one of which Flores said he hoped could start operations before the end of this year. Locations in Tampines and Woodlands are being evaluated, he added.
Also, as many customers order buckets of Jollibee chicken and other food items to bring home, management is considering creating a counter at the Lucky Plaza store dedicated to entertaining take-away orders, he said.
Beyond Singapore, where Jollibee’s business is operated under a joint venture involving Singaporean hotelier Jennie Chua, the fast food chain is eyeing Indonesia as its next big market.
Flores told Yahoo! Singapore that Jollibee was looking to open a “number of stores” in the populous Southeast Asian country within the next two years, although it had yet to find a partner there.
Jollibee is also planning to open more stores in Vietnam, where it currently has 41 after an aggressive push there. “Vietnam is a priority country,” said Flores.
The firm is also looking at putting up a store in Macau and, in the Middle East, raising the number of stores in existing markets there to 18 from 14.
“Europe is in the horizon but we have no plans yet [of opening a store there],” he said.
In total, Jollibee has 97 stores outside of the Philippines, including those in the United States.
Related links:
Filipino fast food giant Jollibee opens in Singapore
Jollibee to open second store
