Spar Austria has posted a 16% growth in sales in its food retail division, amounting to €8.32 billion in its financial year 2020.
This performance is above the estimated average growth of 10% projected by Nielsen for the Austrian food retail industry.
The retailer gained a market share of 1.8% during this period to become the country's new market leader with a total market share of 34.6%.
Overall Performance
In this period, Spar Austria Group saw gross sales growing by 5.6%, to €16.60 billion, across all three business areas, food retail, sports retail, and shopping centres.
The group, which includes Spar Austria, Aspiag, Hervis, and SES SPAR European Shopping Centres, created more than 4,900 jobs in 2020, including 4,200 in Austria.
'A Real Challenge'
CEO Fritz Poppmeier commented, "In this special year 2020, we have perfectly maintained the local supply. That was a real challenge at times. We were able to prove our capabilities.
"The fact that we were able to achieve market leadership in Austria in 2020 is thanks to our great employees and is a really nice award from our many loyal customers."
Other Countries
In Northeast Italy, Slovenia, Hungary and Croatia, the group generated sales worth €6.20 billion and achieved growth of 6.5%.
In Northeast Italy, it emerged as the market leader with sales amounting to €2.43 billion, while in Hungary, sales amounted to €2.10 billion.
In Slovenia, Spar came in second with €924 million in sales, and third in Croatia with sales of €733 million.
E-commerce
In Austria, the retailer saw online orders increasing by 50% during the financial year, while sales grew by 60%.
E-commerce sales grew by 150% in Slovenia and by 250% in Hungary.
Spar Austria Group operates online grocery stores in Hungary, Slovenia, and Austria.
© 2021 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Dayeeta Das. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
