Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, in conjunction with STORES Magazine have just released the results of their 12th annual Global Powers of Retailing survey. The survey identifies the 250 largest retailers around the world based on publicly available data for the companies’ fiscal year 2007 (encompasses fiscal years ended through June 2008). It also identifies 10 trends for retailers to consider as they plan their growth strategies and confront the current economic crisis.
Highlights from this year's report:
The average Top 250 company generated $14.5 billion in retail sales in 2007, up from $13 billion for the 2006 group. To become a member of this elite list required fiscal 2007 retail sales of approximately $3 billion, up from $2.7 billion in 2006.
Economic concentration of the leading companies fell in 2007, although retail sales for the Top 10 did exceed $1 trillion for the first time. Unlike in prior years, the world’s 10 largest retailers saw their share of Top 250 sales decline slightly to 29.6% from 30.1% in 2006.
French and German retailers are the most international in scope. The 13 French retailers on the Top 250 list operated in an average 18.9 countries in 2007 and generated 35.3% of their sales from outside their domestic borders. The 21 German retailers did business in an average 13.8 countries and generated the highest share of sales from foreign operations, 41.8%.
In contrast, US retailers still are not major players in international markets. Of the 87 US-based companies in the Top 250, 49 have no international operations. On average, US retailers operated in 4.2 countries in 2007. The vast majority of their sales, 88.3%, still come from domestic operations.
Asia/Pacific (Japan, in particular) and Latin American retailers have been the slowest in going global. The 24 Japanese retailers on the Top 250 list operated in an average of just 2.8 countries in 2007. Only 10% of their retail sales took place outside Japan. Latin American retailers operated in the fewest number of countries, just 1.6. Their international operations comprised 9.9% of sales.
The full report is available from the Deloitte website
Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: AndyB!
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