Top 250 Newcomers

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Supermarket resurgence After several years on the wane, supermarkets staged a comeback among the Top 250 retailers in 2008. Of 24 newcomers to the Top 250 list, 14 operated supermarkets, including nine where it was the dominant format (see Top 250 Newcomers below). Although the supermarket has been displaced somewhat in recent years by the hypermarket, hard discount format and convenience store, it remained the most common store format, operated by 103 of the Top 250 retailers.

Home improvement stores, especially big-box formats, have become increasingly prominent in the global marketplace. In fiscal 2008, 43 Top 250 retailers operated a home improvement chain, up from 32 in 2005. On the decline is the freestanding drug store/pharmacy; fewer Top 250 retailers operate this format than did so in the past as supermarkets, hypermarkets and mass merchants increasingly provide in-store pharmacies.

Top 250 Newcomers It is perhaps not so surprising that 17 of the Top 250 newcomers are involved in the food sector, operating supermarkets (as noted above) as well as other food store formats. Three of these companies – FDB (Coop Danmark), KF Gruppen and Coop Norge – are “new” only because they operated independently as national cooperatives in 2008. For several years prior, they were subsumed under Coop Norden, which has been converted to a pure purchasing company.