MatHaus figures, however, also include the revenue of the B2B Arabesque centers.
Leader of the DIY market is Dedeman, the largest entrepreneurial company in Romania, by revenue., more than RON7 billion in 2018, and by number of stores, 51, the latest of which opened in Slobozia. Dedeman needs to enter four more counties – Calarasi, Covasna, Giurgiu and Teleorman, to be able to say it covers the entire country.
Second leading DIY retailer is Brico Depot, with 35 stores. Brico Depot is held by UK’s Kingfisher, which also bought rival network Praktiker in 2017.
Its 17 stores in Romania put French-held Leroy Merlin on the third place, followed by Romanian-held MatHaus, the retail division of Arabesque, held by the Rapotan family, with seven stores, and Germany’s Hornbach.
Hornbach was planning at the end of last year to open another store, its seventh in Romania, in Oradea. It currently has three stores in Bucharest (Berceni, Militari, Balotesti), and one in in Timisoara, Sibiu and Brasov each.
Construction materials retail and wholesale is an about EUR4 billion industry a year. In all the top ten companies in this business had more than 15,000 employees in 2018.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)