Robinsons Retail to ramp up expansion outside Metro Manila

MANILA, Philippines — Gokongwei-owned Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc. (RRHI) is looking to ramp up the presence of its supermarket and drugstores outside Metro Manila.

With 30 percent of the group’s stores currently located in Metro Manila, RRHI president and CEO Robina Gokongwei-Pe said they want to accelerate expansion outside the capital.

“In terms of formats, were looking to open more of our core supermarket and drugstore banners,” she said.

Robinsons Retail operates a total of 2,399 stores consisting of 756 food segment stores, 1,072 drugstores, 50 department stores, 224 DIY stores and 297 specialty stores as of end-March.

It also has over 2,100 franchised stores of drugstore chain TGP.

“To maintain market share, we will continue to differentiate by offering a wide range of relevant products and providing an exceptional shopping experience be offline or online. Our margins should remain intact as we continuously enhance our product mix and gain more scale,” Gokongwei-Pe said.

According to Gokongwei-Pe, RRHI has entered the hard discount category through a stake in O!Save which is aggressively expanding.

O!Save Trading Philippines Corp. is a hard discount supermarket chain founded in 2021.

“The hard discounters focus on small pack sizes and sachets versus our core supermarket formats that offer regular and large pack sizes suggest that there is limited pricing pressure for some products,” Gokongwei-Pe said.

For its drugstore business, she said RRHI will open more branches to reach untapped areas.

The company also remains open for potential acquisitions to beef up further its portfolio.

“In terms of major acquisitions, we are always on the lookout for value accretive M&As. Should there be an opportunity, we will be ready to capitalize,” Gokongwei-Pe said.

“Our aspiration for the drugstore segment is to simply become more accessible to our customers. By doing so, we aim to boost our market share and brand value. We believe there is opportunity to increase market coverage for all our banners, as there are a lot of municipalities and barangays in the Philippines that still lack drugstores,” she said.

RRHI operates TGP, the country’s largest chain of generic drugstores.

It acquired Southstar Drug in 2012 and in 2020, the company also acquired Cebu-based family run pharmacy, Rose Pharmacy Inc.