“We will go beyond EUR500 million this year and get close to one billion euros next year,” said Iulian Stanciu, chief executive officer of eMag, on ZF Live.
“We will definitely get to one billion euros in 2017,” said Sorin Ionescu, eMag vice-president and international development director.
The online store saw growth beyond initial estimates last year, Stanciu said, to somewhere close to EUR300 million.
“Our 2014 growth is higher than the initial estimate of EUR260 million. We will be quite close to EUR300 million. This growth comes from the expansion on the electronics market in Romania and from international expansion. We operate with the same company in Bulgaria and Hungary, as well. 2014 was a very good year in terms of results, sales figures and projects developed, consolidating the base we can develop from in the future.”
Bulgaria and Hungary generate more than 10% of the total sales. Growth stands at more than 200%, which means sales tripled, Sorin Ionescu, 31, said.
eMag’s revenue in Bulgaria amounted to EUR6.5 million in 2013 and came close to EUR20 million in 2014. In Hungary, it stood at about 60 million lei (EUR13 million) last year.
Electronic commerce is a less than EUR200 million market in Bulgaria, and eMag accounts for more than 50% of the electronics market. In Hungary, competition is ‘quite strong’ on the online market, eMag’s CEO said. Its main rivals in Hungary are eDigital, Tesco and Mediamarkt.
Asked whether eMag was planning more acquisitions like it did in Poland, Stanciu replied that the retailer would definitely enter a new market in its race for one billion euro revenue.
“We will go beyond half a billion euro revenue this year, with Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland plus whatever we will do this year. I don’t know whether we’ll buy more companies or not but we’ll definitely enter a new country,” he added without specifying which country.
eMag will buy Agito.pl, one of the largest online stores in Poland, a move that will give it access to a EUR4 billion electronic commerce market, four times bigger than in Romania.
It has already submitted the necessary papers to the Polish competition watchdog and as soon as it receives the approval, it will begin the integration, Sorin Ionescu said.
eMag invested a lot of money last year to fuel its international expansion.
“We invested a lot, we ended the year with 1,200 employees, 250 of whom work in programming. A site may appear very simple for many, but there is a complex activity behind it. All this development was done with international expansion, as well as with development of new product categories in mind,” Stanciu, 39, said.
Iulian Stanciu and Naspers agreed on the expansion plan and on the fact that there is a window of opportunity for expansion so the company could reach EUR1 billion sales.
Romanian companies should stop complaining and go to the markets in the region, Stanciu said, adding that eMag is not the only local ‘multinational’ capable of reaching EUR1 billion revenue. “There are companies like Dedeman and RCS&RDS that may get to EUR1 billion.”
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)