“Our plan is to have at least ten stores in Bucharest by 2015, including the stores open at the moment,” Kaufland officials told ZF.
The retailer has stores in Barbu Vacarescu, Sebastian, Colentina and Mihai Bravu (north, southwest, northeast and east of Bucharest).
The investment in six new Kaufland stores can be estimated at about EUR50 million, as the German retailer usually prefers to buy the land for its stores.
Kaufland posted EUR1.5 billion sales in Romania in 2012 and is currently working on new stores in Militari, Pantelimon and Berceni (west, east and south of Bucharest), which it should complete in 2014.
Kaufland is part of a group owned by billionaire Dieter Schwarz, which also includes the Lidl network.
There are 12 major foreign chains competing in food retail in Bucharest. The most powerful of them are Carrefour, which has eight hypermarkets, as well as supermarkets and convenience stores, and Mega Image, which has more than 170 Mega Image supermarkets and Shop&Go stores in the city.
Kaufland’s investments in Bucharest are intended to even out competition on the hypermarket segment, currently dominated by Carrefour, where Auchan will improve its position once the acquisition of Real hypermarket finalized, which will take its network to seven hypermarkets in the city. Another rival, Cora, has four stores in Bucharest and plans to add at least two more.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)