Dear Shareholders,
As stated in the Group’s 2024 Annual Results, both the Group and Hong Kong’s overall business environment face multiple challenges, including sluggish economic growth and irreversible trends on shopping across the border and consumers frequent travelling, which continue to pressure Hong Kong’s retail sector. Confronted with aggressive competition from large-scale Mainland competitors, including competitive campaigns and acquisitions of supermarket chains, alongside shifts in consumer behavior and online shopping habits, as well as increased acceptance of Mainland products, the Group remains committed to innovation and will explore diverse approaches to continue leading as Hong Kong’s largest Ecommerce platform.
During the review period, the Group’s total Gross Merchandise Value (“GMV”) on order intake recorded HK$4,182.9 million, representing a slight decrease of 1.2% compared to the same period last year (1H2024: HK$4,235.5 million). The number of unique customers and monthly active users of HKTVmall app remained stable. Facing a stagnating or even declining Hong Kong retail sector, HKTVmall, as the Group’s core business, showed no significant drop and outperformed the overall Hong Kong retail market. However, we cannot be complacent and must adopt an innovative and adaptive approach to seek new opportunities for survival.
As the Group’s core business, HKTVmall continues to generate stable revenue for the Group. We are committed to enhancing customer shopping experience through convenient services, including our “8-hour Express Delivery” — orders placed before 1pm are delivered as early as the same evening. We are also exploring possibilities to further shorten delivery lead time through enhanced logistics arrangements. Currently, HKTVmall collaborates with over 6,400 merchants and suppliers, offering customers a wide range of product choices at extensive price options. We hope that Hong Kong’s retail sector can better align with new retail trends, and therefore HKTVmall will host more workshops aimed at enhancing retailers’ digital operations and sales capabilities. Additionally, the Group will continue to actively develop Third-Party Logistics Services and the independent eStore solution, ThePlace, providing robust technological and operational support to help retailers expand their Ecommerce business.
Building on the stable traffic of HKTVmall online shopping mall, customer trust and our team’s agile mindset, the Group is actively making different attempts and exploring various new services and features, establishing unique advantages in what the market calls a “retail battleground.” Key initiatives include the following:
In 1H2025, we allocated more resources to develop and promote “Wet Market Express” service, resulting in continuous strong growth in both popularity and business performance. This reflects consumers’ gradual acceptance and willingness to try this new shopping model. In addition to launching various promotions, we have further strengthened our logistics support this year with the introduction of “Cross-District Delivery”. Customers can now order from over 300 selected market vendors across Hong Kong’s 10 major wet markets and the Yau Ma Tei Wholesale Fruit Market, choosing fresh ingredients and fruits from more than 20,000 product choices, delivered to any address regardless of district.
We firmly believe that the uniqueness of fresh market products and the complexities of logistics create competitive barriers for the Group that local market consortia and large-scale Mainland competitors cannot easily replicate in the short term. At the same time, we are conducting research on food supply and distribution, including direct procurement and expanding the variety of fresh products to reduce operational costs.
During the review period, the Group launched “Shipped from Mainland” section on HKTVmall, highlighting the concept of “Same Price as Mainland”, aligning the product prices with Mainland Ecommerce platforms. It covers popular categories such as trending food items, housewares, daily essentials, furniture, appliances, etc.
Some of the major reasons for the rapid growth of Mainland Ecommerce platforms are due to their extensive product options, aggressive pricing strategies and strong support from a wide network of suppliers and merchants. Given that the Mainland merchants are well-versed in operating online stores and supplying to Ecommerce platforms, partnering with HKTVmall presents an ideal opportunity for them to reach Hong Kong consumers. We carefully select high-quality Mainland merchants to set up online stores on HKTVmall. They have to ship their products to HKTVmall’s fulfilment centre in Dongguan, and then HKTVmall will handle the last-mile delivery in Hong Kong. Although the delivery lead time for these Mainland-sourced products may be longer than those for local products, they are comparable to the delivery times experienced by Hong Kong consumers when purchasing directly from Mainland platforms. The quality of HKTVmall’s delivery service is known for its reliability and has consistently received positive feedback from Hong Kong consumers. We firmly believe that “Shipped from Mainland” offers consumers a wider range of Mainland product options, catering to diverse tastes and needs, and effectively expanding our customer base.
Following the widespread adoption of Ecommerce, most retailers — including gadgets & electronics, international cosmetics and skincare brands, health products, and fashion, etc. — now operate their own online stores. Besides, popular travel platforms are also hoping to expand their customer base. CASHBACK is a brand-new business model that allows merchants to display their products and services on HKTVmall’s platform without opening a HKTVmall store. If customers are interested in products featured on CASHBACK, HKTVmall will redirect them to the merchant’s official website to complete their purchase and transaction. Meanwhile, when customers search for a brand on HKTVmall, the brand’s HKTVmall store, CASHBACK display store and official website will be shown at the same time.
During the review period, CASHBACK launched various promotions, including a 10% Mall Dollar rebate for customers who get into the major travel platforms such as Trip.com, Agoda, Booking.com, Klook, etc., through CASHBACK and make hotel reservations. This initiative represents a new approach — redirecting HKTVmall customers to partnered merchants’ websites for purchases, allowing them to earn Mall Dollars, and ultimately channelling their spending power back to HKTVmall.
The Group is actively driving the development of HKTVLive’s direct sales, broadcasting uninterrupted live show programs daily from 8:30am to 12am midnight. On the one hand, we keep enhancing the system and user interface. On the other hand, we developed multiple sales channels of different themes. In addition to overseas shopping services from countries such as South Korea, Japan, the UK, France, etc., we also feature products from both new and long-standing HKTVmall merchants — including flagship stores for skincare & cosmetics, sofas, gadgets & electronics, jewellery, etc.
Among them, the daily 9-hour live shows hosted by Wet Market Express visit various wet markets, the Yau Ma Tei Fruit Wholesale Market, specialty fruit shops, stores that sell dry goods, etc. Additionally, live shows hosted for O2O stores showcase our own curated selections of fruits, groceries, frozen meats & seafood, etc. During the review period, the “Thankful Festival” was held, where merchants participating in the “Store of the Day” promotional campaign also offered limited deals through the livestream sales, further stimulating consumer spending. In addition, starting from July, we introduced content-based informative live show programs covering topics such as yoga and fitness, skincare and make-up, metaphysics and horoscopes, relationships, etc., to enhance user interaction.
We believe that Fully Automated Retail Store and System is the most cost-effective operation model for the global retail industry in the future, particularly for convenience stores, supermarkets and pharmacies. Due to technical challenges, two major Ecommerce giants in the Mainland and the United States gradually abandoned their related plans last year. Meanwhile, our Fully Automated Retail Store and System in the UK has started to roll out services in phases. Although we continue to face significant technical hurdles, we are fully committed to improving the technology and optimising operations. We are also actively considering the launch of our first Fully Automated Retail Store and System in Hong Kong next year.
Our overseas research team continues to strive for new breakthroughs in technologies related to human organ preservation and blood regeneration. Although we have made some progress, the road to success is still long.
There are only two options on the road laid out before us:
1. Giving up all the non-core businesses outside of HKTVmall, including Wet Market Express, Fully Automated Retail Store and System and Life Science Project. We can even cut down new feature development and manpower for HKTVmall, to minimize costs for boosting the profit to the highest in the coming 2-3 years.
2. Upholding the Group’s core value of innovation that we have kept in the past 30 years to undaunted by competition, make bold attempts, and explore diverse paths to survival.
Obviously, we chose the latter. We would like to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt gratitude to the shareholders and business partners who have long believed in and supported the Group, as well as to the dedicated team of Talents who have devoted their valuable years.
Cheung Chi Kin, Paul
Chairman
Wong Wai Kay, Ricky
Vice Chairman
Hong Kong, 27 August 2025