The company has continued to grow at the pace it had before the health crisis, reaching over 370 low-price stores locally.
Romania has thus consolidated its position as the second most important market for Poles after its home country. By comparison, there are 1,157 stores in Poland, but the brand launched there in 2004, 11 years before it entered Romania.
Hungary and Romania were the fourth and fifth markets respectively, after Poland, the Czech Republic (2013) and Slovakia (2013). Then the expansion continued.
The group, listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange last year, has a presence in 15 European countries, where it operates 2,676 stores, according to its website. Of them, 14% or one in seven are in Romania.
“Every year, we open an average of 300 stores and enter at least two new European markets. In the last decade, the number of employees has increased tenfold,” Pepco representatives say.
In 2021, the new markets were Austria and Spain.
Executives of the Polish brand have previously said that of the 300 stores planned to open annually at European level, about 50 are allocated to Romania, with a local target of 500 stores. They did not provide a timeframe but given the pace of expansion, 2024 seems feasible.
Last year’s data is not yet public, but in 2020 Pepco increased its sales in Romania at the height of the pandemic by 2.4%, to more than RON1.4 billion (EUR285 million).
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)