Photos from Agence France-Presse.

(I have not been able to access this blog for the last four days, so I’m posting my entry for last Friday.)

For the last, oh, 5 to 6 years, franchising has continued to fizzle and sizzle in the Philippines, cornering an ever growing share of retail sales especially in Metro Manila. A recent article by Tina Arceo-Dumlao of the Philippine Daily Inquirer that there are now “close to 900 franchises operating in the country from just 50 in 1995 and 64 percent of these are homegrown. These are largely in food, service and retail.”

Interestingly enough, many new franchise owners are 30-something and below, says the Philippine Franchise Association. They know the pulse of the market because they ARE a big segment of the “upwardly mobile professional” market. They are aggressive, looking not just at the Philippine market but ASEAN and beyond. They have nimble business sense and they readily morph and adapt their business strategies to suit the market — something that older, more traditional businessmen might have difficulty doing.

“Franchising is definitely a growing market,” Bartolome says. “Every month, there are entrepreneurs starting to expand via franchising. More and more Philippine companies that are franchising here are now inspired to expand beyond the shores like within the ASEAN region, Middle East and North America. I could see that within the next decade, almost all businesses will be into franchising,” says Amando Bartolome, a franchise consultant.

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My sister is an OFW. Right now, she is here in the country on a five-month vacation and using the break from work to become a licensed real estate agent. When she goes back to work in January, she is hoping to sell properties to her fellow OFWs. Not a day wasted for our hard-working workers based abroad.

Many entrepreneur nowadays is in deep thought on how to market to OFWs. A Philippine Daily Inquirer special report shows that this Christmas season alone, dollar remittances have fueled new affluence among Filipinos. (Click here to read X’mas spending evolving toward ‘more important’ purchases and here for Dollar remittances fuel new affluence among Filipinos).

How do you market to someone you cannot see, you cannot visit, you cannot call through your landline? That’s definitely a challenge, but finding the solution will definitely bring in exciting results. The real estate industry has already done this. It is raking in the money and from the looks of it, despite the subprime mortgage issue, will continue to do so in 2008. Most OFWs are not yet well-versed on various investment options in the market so houses and real properties are good options that are tangible and easy to understand.

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Four powerful businesswomen report big successes in 2007 – and are not afraid of what 2008 will bring. An excerpt of the article from Philippine Daily Inquirer below:

Tessie Sy
(SM Group) Retail, banking, property development

“We are confident that the Philippine economy has sufficient momentum to cope with the external challenges facing it such as the weakness in the US and European markets and higher inflation due to the unrelenting increase in crude oil prices. On that note, we decided to pursue our expansion plans across all our core businesses. Both our retail and mall businesses will be expanding outside of Metro Manila, while the banks will complete their consolidation of recent acquisitions. The property group will launch new residential projects, and perhaps break ground for the sports arena and the Radisson hotel which will both be at the Mall of Asia complex. We will continue to sell condo units and beach and country club shares in Pico de Loro. All these will cost the whole group about P26 billion in capital expenditures.”

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Some eye-popping figures came out of Cartoon Network’s latest study on Filipino children and their lifestyles.

P37 billion – spending power of kids in their “tweenies”, or kids seven to 14 years old

46% — of Filipino kids are now using the Internet versus 26% in the 2005 study

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Here’s the video I took of the press conference on muscovado sugar. Enjoy!