The overall Italian distribution market was worth €216.6 billion in 2020, of which modern retail accounted for €61.3 billion, a new study has found.
The data comes from the annual report of the Federdistribuzione, the leading trade association for the modern retail industry in Italy.
The food retail segment was worth €123.1 billion, up from €120.4 billion in 2019, while non-food accounted for the remaining €93.5 billion.
Food Retail Overview
Within the food retail segment, revenue from supermarkets and superstores amounted to €45.8 billion, followed by hard discounters (€15.8 billion), traditional stores (€13.3 billion), hypermarkets (€8.4 billion), small stores (€7.1 billion) and other outlets (€10.2 billion).
The top ten players in the food retail segment, according to the study, were Conad with a 15% market share, followed by Selex (14.4%); Coop Italia (12.5%); Esselunga (7.2%); Gruppo VéGé (7.0%); Eurospin (6.5%); Gruppo Carrefour (5.4%); Lidl Italia (4.7%); Agora Network (3.8%); and MD (3.3%).
Among the five biggest purchasing groups, ESD Italia (consisting of Selex, Agora and Aspiag) had 20.5% of the market, ahead of Conad-Finiper with 17.3%; Coop with 12.5%; Aicube (Gruppo VéGé and Carrefour) with 12.4% and Esselunga (8.2%).
Cash & Carry Market
The Cash & Carry channel in Italy achieved a turnover of €3.6 billion from 379 outlets, with a total retail area of 1.5 million square metres.
In this segment, Metro Italia led with a 26.1% market share, followed by Selex (20.6%); Gruppo VéGé (17.2%); Agora (5.8%) and Crai (3.9%).
As of the end of 2020, there were 25,082 modern retail food stores across Italy, down by 452 units compared to a year earlier.
The only store format that saw growth were discounters, whose network increased from 5,275 to 5,385 stores (+110).
Small stores (100-399 square metres) still dominate the marketplace with 10,553 points of sale, although this number was down by 556 units on 2019. There were also 8,805 supermarkets and superstores (-54) and 339 hypermarkets (-20) in operation, according to the study.
© 2021 European Supermarket Magazine. Article by Branislav Pekic. For more Retail news, click here. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
