U Mobile has collaborated with Qualcomm Technologies to explore the future of Smart Retailing. As part of this collaboration, U Mobile and Qualcomm will work together to enable digital innovations for retail players, enhancing the shopping experience for customers and simplifying operations for retailers in the process.
This collaboration is particularly timely as the retail industry has enjoyed a healthy rebound in recent months with the lifting of pandemic restrictions. According to the Malaysia Retail Industry Report for September 2022, the country’s retail industry recorded a growth rate of 62.5% in retail sales in 2Q2022, versus 18.3% in 1Q22M, with the projection of an average growth rate of 61.7% for the following quarter. In addition, the upcoming commercial launch of 5G also means that more and more digital transformations and innovation opportunities will become reality.
Smart Retail solutions will help retailers transform the shopping experience for customers while minimising their digital pain points. For example, retailers may personalise shopping experience according to customer profiles, making it easier for shoppers to locate a product within the store and even engage with customers while they are shopping through Augmented Reality (AR) and Location-Based Services (LBS). The end-to-end customer shopping journey is also taken into consideration and enhanced with features like smart parking, integrated loyalty rewards system, enhanced VIP services and Online-to-Offline (O2O) retail, made possible by 360 degrees integrated IoT platform with existing retail digital enablement.
On the retailer’s end, their daily retail operations including inventory and resources management will be digitised, integrated and simplified for better management as well. Furthermore, retailer pain points like shrinkage, theft and security issues may be better managed using vision AI technology.
“U Mobile is delighted to work together with Qualcomm to explore the opportunities available in Smart Retail. As a digital company, we’re always looking for ways that we may leverage technology to provide solutions to our customers and as such, Qualcomm is the right partner to help us realise these ambitions. Smart Retail is the first space that we’ll be going into together but we’re looking forward to more to come with this collaboration,” said Wong Heang Tuck, Chief Executive Officer of U Mobile.
“At Qualcomm, we believe in the impact that digital transformation can do for business and their consumers. Through our comprehensive system of integrated solutions, we provide enhanced smart retail solutions which not only improves the overall retail experience of consumers, but also improves efficiencies among retailers. We look forward to this collaboration with U Mobile as together, we will be able to empower more retailers through Smart Retail,” said ST Liew, Vice President of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and President of Qualcomm in Taiwan and Southeast Asia.
