[Hong Kong, July 5, 2005]: Watsons, the largest personal store in Hong Kong, celebrated another milestone today with the launch of NEW Watsons at the Capitol Centre flagship store in Causeway Bay. More than HK$20 millions is invested in the brand-wide transformation to NEW Watsons which will be rolled out progressively across all of the 170+ Watsons stores over the next 12 months.

What is New Watsons?

Constantly innovating and improving, NEW Watsons is launched to delight Hong Kong shoppers with a Fresh and Unique shopping experience; emphasizing exceptional health and beauty products, market-leading professional services, and a more contemporary, colourful and comfortable shopping environment.

Asia's number one health and beauty retailer, NEW Watsons deeply cares about its customers. That's why we are enhancing the overall customer shopping experience to help customers enjoy their life more -- by helping them look good, feel great and have fun!

NEW Watsons aims to build upon our over 150 years of history in Hong Kong and our strong relationship with our customers. Because each individual's health and beauty needs are personal and unique, NEW Watsons is making an effort to engage customers in a personal way, elevating the emotional connection with customers to "My Watsons. My personal store." Watsons' new advertising campaign is based on this distinctive proposition.

Why NEW Watsons?

Watsons has long been dedicated to building lasting personal relationship with its customers. After extensive consumer and market research on what constitutes the ideal personal store, Watsons has responded to the lifestyle, emotional and aspirational demands of its customers with its transformation to NEW Watsons.

Mr David Boynton, Watsons' Managing Director for Hong Kong, commented on the brand's evolution, saying "NEW Watsons represents a total commitment to customer satisfaction and to delivering a fresh and unique new retail experience that offers the ultimate in personalised health and beauty retailing in Hong Kong."

"NEW Watsons is meeting the demands of today's consumer in ways that are more different, better and more special than ever before. The extensive changes are designed to create the ideal customer vision of what "My Personal Store" should be, and we expect that they will be well received amongst customers and set a new benchmark in the industry," added Mr Boynton.

What's NEW at Watsons?

NEW Watsons features a more contemporary, colourful and comfortable shopping environment with a vast range of New Products, strengthened Personal Service and continued commitment to deliver Best Value, further advancing the brand's market-leading business proposition in Hong Kong.

NEW Watsons stores such as Capitol Centre feature new staff work wear, more spacious shop layouts with wider aisles, improved lighting and better signage so customers can discover something new all the time.

Hong Kong's largest professional team of Beauty and Health and Wellbeing Consultants is employed by NEW Watsons. This unparalleled 350-person strong team consists of professional pharmacists, dieticians and nutritionists, registered nurses, health and fitness advisors and beauty consultants.

NEW Watsons features over 20,000 high-quality health and beauty products made up of over 300 leading international and local brands, of which over 100 brands are exclusive to Watsons. In the past 2 months, Watsons introduced over 400 new and exciting products, including a brand new fragrance concept in selected Beauty Zones.

All of this is backed by Watsons' continued commitment to deliver Best Value to our Hong Kong customers through relentless price checking, and our bigger buying power as Asia's number one health and beauty retailer.

Exciting Promotion at NEW Watsons

To celebrate this latest milestone, Watsons is kicking off an exceptional new shopping promotion - Win @ Watsons. Every day, one lucky shopper will win a 1/2 carat of certified diamond in a daily lucky draw for 30 consecutive days. Other special promotions will rotate around the 170+ stores every weekend, offering great value and a special treat for customers.

For a different, better and special personal care store experience, visit NEW Watsons today!

About AS Watson Group (ASW)

With a history dating back to 1828, the AS Watson Group (ASW) has evolved into an international retail and manufacturing corporation with operations in 31 markets worldwide. Today, the Group operates over 6,500 retail stores running the gamut from health & beauty, luxury perfumeries & cosmetics to food, electronics, fine wine and airport retail arms. Also an established player in the beverage industry, ASW provides a full range of beverages from bottled water, fruit juices, soft drinks and tea products to the world's finest wine labels via its international wine wholesaler and distributor. ASW employs over 87,000 staff and is a member of the world renowned Hong Kong-based conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa Limited, which has major interests in ports and related services, telecommunications, property and hotels, retail and manufacturing, and energy and infrastructure with businesses in 52 countries.

About Watsons My Personal Store

Watsons My Personal Store is the largest health and beauty retail chain in Asia operating more than 1,000 stores and 680 pharmacies in 10 markets - Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mainland China, Macau, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Korea and Turkey.

Building on its long-standing reputation for quality and innovation, Watsons caters to a variety of lifestyles with an unrivalled diversity of products. Watsons' mission is to help people around the world to "Look Good, Feel Great, Have Fun". We offer a unique experience to customers through professional advice, interesting shopping environments and the promise of great value every day.

In Hong Kong, Watsons operates more than 170 stores with over 2,000 employees. Watsons is Hong Kong's largest pharmacy chain with more than 50 pharmacies served by 100 pharmacists, as well as 130 professionally trained health and fitness advisors. Watsons is also the largest beauty chain with over 1,000 cosmetics counters and boutiques featuring over 90 international brands.

Watsons is the flagship health and beauty operation of the AS Watson Group (ASW), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa Limited. ASW is the largest health and beauty retailer in the world, with outlets in 31 markets operated by over 87,000 staff. The Group operates 6,500 retail stores which serve more than 23 million customers per week worldwide.

Released on behalf of Watsons My Personal Store by Octagon Greater China.

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