Top Retailers in Austria: Rewe Overtakes Spar

In Austria`s top retailer ranking those market participants active in the food retail industry are ahead by a noselength. Due to Adeg`s takeover by Rewe Austria the group climbed to the first position and overtook the Spar group.

Both considering the sales area and the turnover as well as the outlet number Rewe with all its food retail chains and drugstore chain bipa is Austria`s biggest retail company. Rewe Austria has a sales area of around 1,12 million sqm and nearly 2 500 outlets. The group became the largest in Austria due to the takeover of Adeg two years ago. Thus Rewe Austria overtakes the Spar group. Spar takes second place with all its food and sports retail chains, both in the sales area and turnover as well as in the outlet number ranking. The third place according to turnover is achieved by the food discount retailer Hofer, acoording to sales area by the Lutz group and according to the outlet number by the drugstore chain Schlecker.

Considering the high market penetration especially in the chain organised retail sector an optimisation process in the Austrian retail market is under way. After extremely expansive years not only the number of family run retail stores but also the number of chain stores declined. In 2000 Austria registered a total number of around 55 000 retail stores, today there are only around 50 000 left.