June 15 - The worldwide SPAR organisation continued to perform well in 2008 despite the onset of the worst global recession for a generation.
Speaking at the recent International SPAR Congress in Lucerne, SPAR International Managing Director Dr Gordon Campbell said that SPAR International continues to focus on the key strategic markets of India, Russia and China.
Retail sales area in China has more than doubled to 300,000 sq metres in 2008 and the year ended with 88 hypermarkets and supermarkets.
Dr Campbell announced that SPAR’s base in China was further set for expansion as during Congress the International SPAR Board had agreed to sign a Licence for Hunan Province, China with the Hunan Jiahui Department Store Company. This Province expands the geographical area covered by SPAR partners, bringing the international retail solution to more than 400 million people in China
A new partner Mr. Chu from Shanxi Province joined SPAR at the International Congress last year and he has already been very active in opening both hypermarkets and supermarkets and has signed an agreement with the ten largest independent chain operators in his province. This will enable SPAR Shanxi to become the number one retailer in the region in the near future.
All the SPAR partners in China made great progress last year opening hypermarkets and supermarkets. The hypermarkets have an open market feel and seek to be the ‘best in fresh’ as well as presenting a very strong price proposition. Upmarket supermarkets which are very fresh focused and feature many new SPAR product categories have also been opened successfully in Guangdong and Shanxi Provinces.
Also at a time when many global companies as cutting back on their expansion plans, SPAR International is continuing with its international expansion with the newest SPAR country being Nigeria.
Dr Campbell added: “Nigeria is a large developing market on the west coast of Africa with a population in excess of 150 million. We believe that it offers enormous potential for SPAR. Our partner in Nigeria, the Artee Group, currently operates seven supermarkets”. He told delegates that the initial target is for 20 SPAR supermarkets in three years.
In response to harder economic times, SPAR India re-launched its ‘Value’ proposition with a total of 179 products. They also introduced deli counters and hot food counters which have proved very successful. SPAR India continues to innovate with its fresh offer and has good growth plans in place for 2009.
Growth continued in Russia in 2008 despite the onset of the economic difficulties. A hypermarket with a retail sales area of 5,000m2 was opened in Moscow which can be duplicated in other regions when the retail environment improves. Store numbers totalled 182 with retail sales of €600 million, with growth in Roubles very strong.