President Chain Store China has opened 10 7-Eleven convenience stores in Zhejiang Province.

Aiming to quickly expand in the Yangtze River delta, Taiwan’s President Chain Store Corporation (PCS) says its priority is to open more stores in Hangzhou and Ningbo in a bid to have 30 outlets in the province by the end of the year. This includes increasing its Shanghai stores to 140 from the present 117.

Entering the Chinese market in 2009, the company has seen its convenience-store business there continue to improve. Its losses last last quarter decreased 30 per cent year on year to NT$26 million (US$860,357).

“The break-even timeline could be one or two quarters ahead of our 2019 expectation,” says HSBC Securities Taiwan analyst Jeremy Chen.

President Chain Store’s latest outlet expansion came after the company announced plans to sell its stake in a JV to run Starbucks coffee shops in eastern China. Uni-President Enterprises and PCSC, two major units of food and retail conglomerate Uni-President Group, announced last month they would sell their respective stakes of 20 and 30 per cent in President Starbucks Coffee Shanghai to Starbucks Corporation for NT$40.11 billion.

The two units will also buy the remaining half-share in President Starbucks Coffee in Taiwan from the US company for NT$5.42 billion.

PCSC says its net profit for the second quarter increased 7.8 per cent year on year to NT$2.79 billion.