AS Watson will open the first Watsons flagship in the Middle East in Dubai Mall on October 1, with plans to open 100 stores in the region by the end of 2025.
The health and beauty retailer, which is owned by CK Hutchison (0001), said the online store Watsons.ae, mobile application Watsons UAE and Watsons' memberships program will launch on the same day.
The expansion plan of Watsons in the Middle East will see the opening of two outlets in Dubai Festival City Center and The Mall of the Emirates in the fourth quarter of this year, followed by entry into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2021.
CK Hutchison's AS Watson has reached an exclusive franchise agreement with Dubai-based conglomerate Al-Futtaim to launch the health and beauty brand Watsons in the Gulf Cooperation Council. This is the first franchise agreement of AS Watson in its almost 180 years of history.
Al-Futtaim is a private enterprise, whose business involves automotive, financial services, real estate, retail and health. Al-Futtaim is also the exclusive franchise operation of Marks & Spencer in Hong Kong and Macau.
AS Watson operates around 15,800 stores under 12 brands in 26 markets. The last-year turnover was US$21.8 billion (HK$170 billion).
Meanwhile, Beyond Meat, the rival of Impossible Foods, which Li Ka-shing's private equity fund Horizon Ventures has invested in, is to start production in the mainland.
American artificial meat producer Beyond Meat announced on Tuesday that its wholly-owned subsidiary Beyond Meat (Jiaxing) Food has signed an agreement with Jiaxing Economic & Technological Development Zone to establish two manufacturing facilities. The production facilities, including a state-of-the-art production facility to manufacture plant-based meat products including beef, pork and chicken under the Beyond Meat brand in China, will be located in the JXEDZ, with access to Shanghai.
The trial production is expected to commence within months with full-scale production in early 2021. China is expected to be one of the most important markets in the world for Beyond Meat in the future.
Other artificial meat producers, such as Impossible Foods, are also seeking entry to the China market.
