Czech Republic Grocery Retail Market 2010

Czech Republic Retail Market

The Czech Republic experienced declines in grocery and non-grocery retailing due to the global financial crises. Grocery retailing is worth 45% of all retail sales, and is worth nearly $18 billion. By 2015, food retail is expected to see a 3.6 percent value growth. In 2010, internet retailing accounted for some 3% of overall retail sales. By 2015 it is expected that internet retailing will account for 6% of the market. In 2010, no leading chained retailer offered online shopping. However, this is expected to change as Tesco Stores CR AS is planning to establish an online shop in the Czech Republic. All major supermarkets and hypermarkets in the Czech Republic are owned by non-domestic companies. Leading foreign investors include Tesco (UK), Albert's (Netherlands), Kaufland (Germany) and Globus (Germany).

There are 268 hypermarkets in the Czech Republic, with some 88% of the population living within 20 kilometres of a hypermarket. In 2010, however, only 10 new hypermarkets were opened, four less than 2009. This trend relates to the economic crisis and the resulting change in shopping behavior as consumers prefer a quick and effective way of shopping for grocery products. Growth in the larger stores remains subdued as customers curtail their spending on non-food in the current environment. In 2010, Kaufland stores were the place where Czech households spent the most money on food with 19 percent of households claiming Kaufland as their main grocer. Albert stores and Penny Market discount chain share the second place (both chains have identical preferences of 12 percent households each). Tesco and Lidl also gained their position in the TOP 5 chains (each of them having preferences of about 10 percent households).

Tesco has been pushing for more aggressive growth in Central and Eastern Europe due to slower sales on the US and UK markets. Tesco Czech Republic opened 18 stores in 2008, 21 stores in 2009 and 30 stores in 2010. The 2010 expansion of hypermarkets was clearly headed by Tesco with 7 new stores. Tesco has 173 outlets in the Czech Republic and had sales of $1.97 billion in 2010.

• Kaufland (German): 93 hypermarkets, sales n/a
• Albert's (Netherlands): 279 hypermarkets, 55 supermarkets, sales $2.43 billion
• Tesco (UK): 64 hypermarkets, 40 supermarkets, sales $1.97 billion
• Globus (Germany): 14 hypermarkets, sales n/a
• Billa (Germany): 196 supermarkets, sales n/a
• Penny Market (Germany): 324 supermarkets, sales n/a