The largest retailers in the first half of 2022 increased their revenue to 3.75 trillion rubles.

The largest Russian grocery chains in the first half of 2022 increased their total revenue by 26.5%, to 3.75 trillion rubles. (excluding VAT), follows from the report of the analytical company Infoline.

The leader of the rating in the segment of chains of consumer goods (FMCG) remains X5 Group (1.35 trillion rubles, +18.8%). The top 3 also includes “Magnet” (1.11 trillion rubles, + 39%) and Bristol and Krasnoe & Beloe, which are part of the Mercury Retail Group. The latter increased their revenue by 33.8%, respectively, to 106.8 billion rubles. and by 31.5% to 327.2 billion rubles. According to the report, the regional network “Svetofor” in the first half of the year was able to displace “Auchan”, taking fifth place in the ranking. In addition, Vkusvill took eighth place, overtaking the Okay chain.

In general, the largest retailers managed to maintain fairly high growth rates, but we must remember that this was largely due to the predominantly inflationary component, which peaked in March and April, says Mikhail Burmistrov, CEO of Infoline-Analytics.

During the spring consumer rush, when suppliers were unable to satisfy all the requests of wholesale buyers, retail chains took advantage of the right of priority and chose almost the entire volume of scarce goods, adds Alexander Lebedev, Academic Supervisor of the Master’s program in Retail Management at the Higher School of Business of the Higher School of Economics. Moreover, according to him, the share of such players in the turnover of food retail trade is growing every year. If in 2012 it was 24%, and in 2017 – 37%, then this year it is already about 45%. This increase was due to the consolidation of the industry and the withdrawal of small players from the market. For example, in 2021 “Magnet” bought “Dixie“, a “Ribbon”- Billa and Family networks (and this year also Utkonos). Besides, X5 Group became the owner of 70% of Krasny Yar and Slata retailers, as well as the Finnish network Prisma.

Among the key trends throughout 2022, Burmistrov names the desire of Russians to save money and a decrease in loyalty to foreign brands in the context of their withdrawal from the Russian market or the reduction of operations of a number of international suppliers. All this led to an acceleration in the growth of sales of chains’ private labels (PLs), the share of which will grow by 1.8 percentage points to 9.5% by the end of the year.

In the second half of 2022, Burmistrov expects inflation to slow down. At the same time, he believes that the largest networks will continue to rely on small formats and hard discounters. Hypermarkets and supermarkets, in the face of declining household incomes and reduced traffic in shopping centers, will experience difficulties, the expert concludes. The management of Auchan, despite the increase in revenue by 4.8% in the first half of the year, predicts the end of the year with losses, and in the II quarter. the growth of Metro Cash & Carry and Auchan slowed down sharply, Burmistrov notes. He also believes that by the end of the year, Vkusvill will overtake Vkusvill, which accelerated the development of a network of dark stores within the omnichannel model and became the leader in terms of online sales of food products in the second quarter.

Representatives of Magnit and Auchan did not respond to a request from Vedomosti.

Representative X5 Group said that the company does not make forecasts for the end of the year. But, according to him, the company will speed up the development of the Chizhik hard discounter network – by the end of the year there will be 400 of them instead of the previously planned 300, and the share of private labels in their assortment will grow to 50%.

Vkusvill will continue to increase the number of darkstores and darkkitchens (premises where food is prepared for delivery), a company representative says. He also said that after the departure of foreign brands, the chain faced difficulties in certain groups and categories of goods, which, however, do not have a significant impact on the share in the assortment. For example, imported natural animal feed, which has to look for a replacement in Russia.

The Metro chain sees positive sales dynamics until the end of the year due to growth in the HoReCa segment (restaurant and hotel business) and a strong online sales channel. A spokesman for the retailer notes that the chain has cut regular prices by about 30% on more than 12,000 items. As for the revision of the assortment due to the washing out of some foreign brands, changes have occurred in almost all categories. This includes fresh fish, groceries, drinks (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic), seafood, and cosmetics, a Metro representative noted. According to him, replacements have now been found in almost all categories at the expense of other brands or private labels.

As for non-food products, according to Burmistrov, the Fix-Price chain of fixed price stores and hard discounters (Svetofor and Mayak) effectively competed with online commerce in this segment, since through direct imports they were able to provide significant lower prices. “The decline in disposable incomes of the population is pushing retailers to change the assortment basket towards less variety and greater turnover, and tight discounters in these conditions will show the best growth rates,” Lebedev agrees. According to him, signs of stagnation will be observed in the non-food segment.

The share of imports among retail goods in the last decade ranged from 44% in 2012 to 35% in 2017, and by the end of 2021, it froze at 39%, he recalls. Lebedev predicts that in the second half of 2022 the share of imported goods will decrease, their variety and colorfulness will give way to a more modest design. At the same time, according to him, large retail chains were able to adapt to the change in logistics, and now they are successfully building new work patterns.

“We can say that Russian retailers have shown miracles of adaptability and have adequately passed the test of the shock of a sharp change in supply conditions,” Lebedev concludes.