Spar Rules in Upper Austria

Whilst Rewe has the largest sales area in the counties Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland, the rest of Austria is dominated by Spar. In Upper Austria Spar is no. 1 in all disctricts.

Upper Austrians do not really have a choice: when looking at the sales area in the food retail market Spar is number 1 in all districts. Spar also leads the ranking regarding sales area in Carinthia in every district except one. In Styria Spar is the largest food retailer in 8, Rewe in 7 districts. Spar has increased its sales area in Austria thanks to a dual strategy: on the one hand there were the established independent merchants, on the other hand the group expands with its own large area formats, like Interspar. In the meantime Rewe (with Billa, Merkur and Penny) has  also taken on independent merchants through Adeg and Sutterlütty. However, the total sales area of Rewe is smaller than that of Spar.

The second and the third place in Upper Austria, Styria and in Carinthia are taken by Rewe respectively by Markant. On the fourth place in all three counties resides the discount retailer Hofer. Lidl accomplishes fifth place in Carinthia and Upper Austria , in Styria Tengelmann with Zielpunkt is the fifth largest food retailer.

The development of the Austrian food retail market in 2009 was better than expected with a nominal turnover increase of 1,6%, although the increase rate was not as high as the year before. The discount sector has achieved an increase of 3,0% and therefore developed better than the rest of the food retail sector with a plus of 1,1%.