KUALA LUMPUR: AEON Co (M) Bhd is focusing on digitalisation efforts as part of its mitigation plan if the government decides to extend the full movement control order (FMCO) beyond June.
AEON Retail Malaysia chief executive officer Shafie Shamsuddin said it had started a "great lockdown sale" via online, selling items like clothing, apparels and electronics.
"We have seen encouraging numbers of customers as well as a multiplication of at least between eight to 10 times in terms of our revenue. That is very positive in the sense that whether the government is going to extend the FMCO, we are going to launch our myAEON2go in August.
"We believe that we will be able to leverage all tenants to use myAEON2go platform to give better offerings to customers," he told reporters at a virtual briefing after AEON's 36th annual general meeting (AGM) today.
Shafie said the company was also working on shared services to help reduce its operating expenses which stood at RM180 million last year.
"In the first quarter of this year, we recorded a RM66 million reduction in operating expenses compared to 2020. Out of the RM180 million last year, 61 per cent were sustainable expenses," he said.
Shafie said the company was allocating RM251 million capital expenditure (capex) for 2021 to ramp up its online systems and refurbish outlets.
Forty per cent of the capex will be used to strengthen the company's technology and IT infrastructure, while the balance will be channelled for renovation, maintenance and remodelling of its malls and stores.
"We are looking at opening up 13 new specialist stores this year and focusing on 11 malls for renovation rectification," he said.
On the retail prospect, Shafie said the company was hopeful for a better outlook for the rest of the year.
He added that it was dependent on how fast the national Covid-19 vaccination programme can be given to all retailers.
"Taking into consideration that the context of this year is more difficult because of the MCO and higher daily infection cases, we are striving for at least similar revenue as last year," he said.
He said AEON had given support to its tenants throughout the MCO through waivers of discounts as well as allowing them to pay rental on an instalment basis up to a certain period.
"At the same time, we also offer financing for those who have difficulty to get a loan, and we will link them up to our partners like AEON Credit Service (M) Bhd that can provide them financing," he added.