“We want to focus on Constanta, Cluj, Timisoara and Craiova and open at least one store a year over the coming period. We’ve already bought the land in Constanta and will inaugurate the store next year,” says Dan Sucu, the businessman who owns Mobexpert, adding the group will not open any new stores in 2016.
“Investment in one store stands at about EUR7 million, EUR5 million of which go towards the land and construction work alone and EUR2 million to the running the store.”
Sucu says the best stores of the network are the one in Baneasa (northern Bucharest, compared with all the stores in the city) and in Iasi (compared with all the stores in the rest of the country).
Mobexpert Baneasa SRL posted 86.4 million lei (EUR19 million) sales last year, an increase of 12% on 2014 and RON8.1 million profit. Mobexpert Iasi posted RON20.1 million sales in 2015, an increase of 12% on the previous year, as well as about RON200,000 profit, according to Finance Ministry data.
Mobexpert has four stores in Bucharest – Pipera, Baneasa, Militari and Pantelimon, and nine in the rest of the country – Brasov, Cluj, Constanta, Iasi, Oradea, Pitesti, Sibiu, Suceava and Timisoara, according to the corporate website. It also has 14 partner stores throughout the country.
Mobexpert posted about EUR125 million sales as a group last year, 3% higher than in 2014 and had 2,000 employees.
It has the largest retail chain of all local companies in the furniture retail business, supplied by nine plants in Bucharest, Dej, Targu-Mures and Suceava and logistics platforms in Targu-Mures and Bucharest.
Furniture retail is an about EUR700 million business in Romania and Mobexpert’s foreign-held competitors include Ikea, Kika and JYSK. (EUR1=RON4.5157)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)