Unlike the boom years, however, the retailers focused on smaller stores -supermarkets and discount stores, which require lower investments. The tens of new hypermarkets and cash & carry stores opened every year are a thing of the boom years.
Neither of the two cash&carry chain, Metro and Selgros, opened any store this year. Hypermarkets, the stars of the local market for a long time, opened new stores and closed some of the already existing ones in 2012.
The five companies on this segment opened 14 stores and closed two in 2012, investing more than EUR150 million in the new hypermarkets, according to ZF estimates.
The most active on this segment by far was Kaufland, the local retail sector leader, which expanded its chain by ten hypermarkets. On the other hand, Real and Carrefour each closed one hypermarket.
Carrefour, the retailer than introduced this format in Romania closed one such store in Arad (west of the country), while Real, the third largest hypermarket network by sales (after Kaufland and Carrefour) closed the store it had in the rural town of Ghiroda, near Timisoara (western Romania). This is the first hypermarket ever closed by Real in this country, while 20 other of its hypermarkets will go to Auchan.
The local retail sector star for the second year in a row is the supermarket, as more than 100 such stores opened in 2012.
Mega Image, which operates the supermarkets by the same name and the Shop&Go convenience stores, will end the year with 193 stores, almost double as many as it had at the end of 2011. The company started one of the most aggressive expansion campaigns of the entire sector this year, and will not stop here, according to information on the market.
This year’s developments seem to confirm a previous statement of Xavier Piesvaux, the chief executive of the network, who said a few months ago that the network might grow to 300 stores by the end of 2013.
Second and third most active retailers after Mega Image were Profi (41 new stores) and Carrefour (40). Carrefour has focused on supermarkets and Carrefour Express convenience stores in the last few years instead of hypermarkets. Each hypermarket requires up to EUR20 million investment, while a smaller store only needs several hundred thousand euros.
Discount store chain sales could reach almost one billion euros this year, helped by the opening of 40 new stores in 2012. The two companies left in this business, Lidl and Penny Market, posted almost EUR810 million revenue last year, up 11% on 2010.
Lidl and Penny Market will have grown to 297 stores by yearend. The two German-held networks operate 2,000-3,000 square meter stores and allocated EUR30 million to EUR45 million for investments according to ZF estimates, to reach as many parts of the country as possible.
The discount store chains operate in the biggest cities of the country, and in towns of less than 20,000 people. This is the only modern retail format that has a presence in all the counties of Romania. Lidl and Penny Market have expanded in the last few years despite the difficult economy and consumer spending decline in 2009-2011 and their revenue kept increasing.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)
| Retailer | Stores in 2012 | New stores | Investment (mln. euros) |
| Mega Image | 193 | 88 | 40-50 |
| Lidl Romania | 155 | 26 | 20-30 |
| Profi | 149 | 41 | 15-20 |
| Penny Market | 142 | 14 | 10-15 |
| Carrefour | 110 | 40 | 15-20 |
| Kaufland | 81 | 10 | 70-100 |
| Billa | 71 | 10 | 10-20 |
| Metro Cash&Carry | 32 | 0 | 0 |
| Real | 24 | -1 | 0 |
| Selgros Cash&Carry | 19 | 0 | 0 |
| Auchan | 11 | 2 | 25 |
| Cora | 10 | 2 | 50 |
| Total | 992 | 227 | 255-330 |