Personal Store
In 1828, an adventurous expatriate pharmacist by the name of AS Watson founded the Canton Dispensary in Guangzhou. He provided free medical care to the poor and among his products were tablets to prevent people catching worms from eating infected pork.
Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing famously remembers taking the tablets as a child. But back then he could never have imagined that his Hutchison Whampoa empire would one day own the business that has grown into Asia's leading health and beauty chain.
Watsons Your Personal Store has come a long way from dispensing anti-worm tablets. It is now a dynamic global player with more than 1,500 outlets in 13 countries - not counting a similar number of outlets in a fast-growing portfolio of retail chains acquired by the AS Watson parent group across Europe.
Over the past decade the Personal Store brand has extended its tentacles way beyond Hong Kong, where there are now about 170 stores and 52 pharmacies.
Across Asia, the chain is in the mainland, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea and the Philippines. More recently it has pushed into Europe, exploring the markets of Turkey, Estonia and Slovenia.
