In Romania the top-ranking companies are three foreign groups, which managed from the time they entered the market to boast turnover of hundreds of millions of euros or even billions of euros.
None of the 12 modern retail chains on the Romanian market is held or even created by a Romanian entrepreneur. Carrefour did buy a local supermarket chain (Artima), but only after developing from scratch a hypermarket division which contributes the bulk of the overall turnover.
Foreign networks, such as Mega Image, Profi and Carrefour also bought local stores, but small ones, and only to integrate them within their chains, which they had already developed.
Several Romanian entrepreneurs have sought to put their name on the map of modern retail, but failed the test of time and of the crisis. One such example is that of the Penescu brothers who created the PIC chain, which is currently insolvent and has closed down all stores.
In a ranking dominated by foreign players, no. 1 is Germany’s Kaufland. The retailer developed a chain of 85 low-priced hypermarkets, with sales of around EUR1.5 billion last year, according to ZF estimates based on previous data.
No. 2 in the ranking put together by research company GfK is Lidl, a network that officially entered the Romanian market in 2011 by taking over 100 Plus Discount stores of German Tengelmann group. Kaufland and Lidl are both held by the Schwarz group.
Since its market entry, Lidl pursued a different strategy, mainly relying on private label products (80% of the products), priced 20-30% below established brands.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)