News

Retail and consumer goods industry news

21 March 2013
With the changing dynamics of an increasingly competitive and unique grocery market, Australian retailers continue to drive strong growth, relative to their counterparts in other developed nations. However, despite a highly concentrated network of supermarkets, there remains much headroom to sweat more from existing bricks and mortar assets across all channels. International retailers creati...
21 March 2013
China Resources Enterprise (CRE) has reported consolidated group sales growth of 14.6% for 2012, with retail division turnover up 19.1%.  Growth at retail division, food division sales down In the retail division, same store sales growth was up 4.1% year-on-year, driven by rising prices of consumer goods, new store openings and a contribution from the acquired Jiangxi Honkelong Department ...
21 March 2013
Speaking at the World Retail Congress in Singapore this week, Tesco CEO Philip Clarke announced that Tesco is to launch a paperless Clubcard in China later this year. Shift from postal to electronic communication China will be the first country in which Tesco will launch a fully digital Clubcard. The move will see an end to the retailer's postal mailings, with vouchers and loyalty i...
21 March 2013
The Co-operative Group has announced sales rose 1.5% to £13.5bn at group level, with sales at its food business up 1.3% to £7.44bn, but down 0.7% on a like for like basis in the 53 weeks ending 5th January 2013. Convenience outperforms  In contrast to the overall food business, sales at the retailer's convenience stores were up 1.9% on a LFL basis, with sales increasing 5.5% over the thre...
21 March 2013
Spain's leading grocery retailer, Mercadona, continues to produce enviable results with turnover growth above 5% for the last three years.  Its president, Juan Roig, has been voted third in a list of Spain's most influential businessmen.* We look at Mercadona's success in the past year and its priorities for 2013. 2012: "focus on what we do best: be shopkeepers" In his message at the fron...
21 March 2013
Norwegian retail group Norgesgruppen has reported strong revenue growth of 5.9% in 2012, rising to NOK62.1bn, and continues to grow its market share. Positive performance across the group Operating profit was healthy at NOK2.6bn, up 4.6% on 2011. Growth was driven by the Kiwi discount stores and its convenience banners including Joker and Spar. Meny stores also performed well, although not a...
20 March 2013
Asda is reaffirming its commitment to low prices in a new advert supporting its Price Lock promotion, released to coincide with the Budget. Price Lock commitment The Price Lock promotion is being run by Asda on a range of basic products such as bread and milk. It promises to keep the price of such products consistently low for a minimum of 12 weeks, where it claims that the prices of i...
20 March 2013
Greggs has released its preliminary results showing like-for-like sales were down 2.7% for the 52 weeks ending 29th December 2012. New stores boosting growth Although Greggs has reported a decrease in like-for-like sales, the chain has reported total sales increased by 4.8%, which is being credited to the strong performance of the 100 new shops which opened during the year. The back drop o...
20 March 2013
A company spokesperson has reaffirmed the importance of the Italian market to Carrefour, denying rumours circulating yesterday that Carrefour was planning to sell its Italian business. Conad was rumoured to be interested The report originated from an Italian daily newspaper, and said Italian retailer Conad may be interested in acquiring the business, either alone or with other partners....
20 March 2013
Metro Group's full year results conference today confirmed previously released figures for 2012, and gave a cautious but optimistic outlook for the year ahead. Modest growth in 2012 Metro confirmed that total group revenues rose a modest 1.2%, reaching €66.7bn for the full year 2012. Operating profit fell by 16.7% to €1.98bn, in line with its revised guidance. Performance was mixed between m...