Profi posts 45% growth in spite of declining consumption

Although this is considered a high growth rate considering the current economic background, this percentage is less than half of the 100 percent rate registered in the first six months of 2008.

“Analyzing the same number of stores, net sales in the first half of 2009 were 29.5 percent higher than in 2008,” the manager of Profi Rom Food, Caius Crisan, said.
In the first quarter, the rise in sales was 47 percent, due to a tripling in sales of products on the first price level and own brands.

The network presently counts 60 units and six more stores are scheduled to be opened in the second half of this year. Profi budgeted €170 million worth of business at the beginning of 2009, up 21 percent from the €140 million budget set for 2008, due to network expansion, which will raise the number of employees to 1,500, according to Crisan.

The discount segment is the winner of this time of economic crisis. Clients are migrating towards economical products and the discount brings the best price offer. Profi’s competitors – Plus Discount, Penny Market, and MiniMax Discount – also announced annual increases in the first half of 2009.

The Plus network registered a rise in the number of buyers in the first six months. “Compared to the first half of 2008, the number of buyers is rising this year, in both recently opened stores and stores older than one year,” the Marketing Manager of Pludi Market, Ioana Marginean, said, quoted by the Mediafax news agency.

Rewe Romania, the operator of the Penny Market and Penny Market XXL discount networks, registered a 35 percent increase in sales in H1, according to the retailer’s Chief Executive Officer, Marcel Thiele.