Retail group Auchan is considering discontinuing its Jumbo hypermarket brand in Portugal by the end of 2018, according to Jornal de Negocios.
The intention of the French retailer is to adopt the name Auchan in most of the 17 countries where it operates, as part of a new strategy to strengthen its presence. Last year, the company announced plans to gradually make its banners more homogenous, and place greater emphasis on the Auchan brand.
Changing Brands
Speaking to journalists in Moscow, Auchan CEO Wilhelm Hubner pointed out that, “at the moment in which digital is leading the development of trade, it is important to have a single brand to be simpler for the customer to recognise, not five brands that will naturally create confusion".
Asked if the Jumbo brand will disappear, Hubner replied that "an evaluation of the change was done in all countries, to see whether it had impact on notoriety".
In the case of Italy, the conclusion was that the Simply brand was not well-known so all the group's operations in this market will be renamed Auchan.
In Portugal, where the group operates in the hypermarket segment with the Jumbo brand and also owns the Pão de Açúcar and the My Auchan neighbourhood stores, a decision will be announced shortly. However, Hubner noted that Portuguese customers “already know the Auchan brand”.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine
